Summer travels took a detour this year, and in July the kids and I wended our way through hilly back roads of Missouri and found Laura and Almanzo Wilder’s little house in the Ozarks . I’d heard a long time ago that there was a museum there, but I thought, “Missouri? Laura never lived in Missouri!” But she did. It was not a move taken lightly. After their marriage, written about in These Happy Golden Years , Laura and Almanzo suffered greatly in De Smet, South Dakota: they had lost an infant son, lost their livelihood in a drought, and their property in a fire. So when their daughter Rose was seven years old, and Laura had saved $100 from sewing jobs, Laura and her husband packed up what was left, said tender farewells to Laura’s parents, and began the long trek to Mansfield, Missouri. In the house in Mansfield there is a picture of Laura and Almanzo taken in 1942. Laura is 75 and Almanzo is 85. Since they are the only two in the p...