Even before Laura Ingalls Wilder had written the final novel in the Little House series, readers were researching the background of her books. In 1942, the mother of two girls from Kansas City wrote the mayor of De Smet, South Dakota, to ask “if there is really a Silver Lake and a Big Slough here.” Aubrey Sherwood, the editor of the De Smet News, answered the question for the mayor: “The News is happy to vouch for the authenticity of the books by Mrs. Wilder—that she actually experienced the pioneer days here with her family, on the shores of Silver Lake by a large slough, since drained, living on the claim throughout the Hard Winter and many more winters afterward, though many years ago she and her husband and daughter Rose moved to southern Missouri.”¹ The editor sent Wilder a copy of the newspaper.

A view of the Big Slough in De Smet, S.Dak., that was so prevalent in Laura’s life

In the same issue, Sherwood, who would be the keeper of the Wilder legacy in De Smet for many years, inadvertently verified another Wilder story, one that did not appear in one of her books until the next year. Under the headline “Traveling the Same Old Prairie Road Brings View of Lakes with Expanse Water,” the editor took readers over the road that Laura and Almanzo travel on many a summer afternoon buggy ride in These Happy Golden Years, published in 1943. Lakes Henry and Thompson, which had been nearly dry through the 1930s, were full once again, Sherwood announced, adding: “If you like, you can drive around the west side of the lake [Henry] by the old road that winds from the west point to the old Grothe farm, and on up on the bluff, and then down into the meadow and south to the road that goes between the lakes. It is the same old winding prairie road. . . . [I]t is worth while to stop on the bluff to look over the lake from this highest bank.” A month later, Wilder, who was writing These Happy Golden Years at the time, requested another copy of the paper “telling of the Old Prairie Road” because she had sent hers on to Lane and “would like to have a copy to keep.”²

Nancy Tystad Koupal

1.) “Is There a Silver Lake? Asked after Children Read Mrs. Wilder’s Books,” De Smet News, July 16, 1942.

2.) Wilder to Sherwood, Aug. 17, 1942, IIA 59, Box F, Bell Collection, Laura Ingalls Wilder Memorial Society Archives, De Smet, S.Dak.