Hello Wilder listeners, This is producer Emily taking over for Glenneth today because we are still prepping for our final episode. Thank you to everyone who's come this far with us, and especially thank you to those who have reached out to share about their relationship with Laura in their life. We're incorporating a bunch of your feedback into our grand finale episode. But while you wait for that, we have a surprise for you. There are so many things we
haven't been able to include in this series. Moments from the road, more background on Laura and Roses lives, and of course all the fascinating things are guests said in interviews. We wanted to release one of those full interviews, so we present to you our extended Melissa Gilbert interview. If you grew up loving The Little House television show, you
know Melissa Gilbert. I know that when Glennis first started talking to me about a podcast about Laura Ingles Wilder, the first image that popped up in my head was ten year old Melissa running down that grassy hill with braids of floral calico dress. Of course, now we know that Laura is so many things, and no one understands that legacy better than Melissa, who's been shouldering a part.
Of it for the past fifty years.
We're so thankful that she was willing to talk to us about what that experience has been like. Our conversation ranged from her time on the TV show with Michael Landon and the rest of the cast, to finding agency as a young actor, to her business Modern Prairie, to her activism, and even.
Her thoughts on Rose Wilder Lane.
We spoke to Melissa over Zoom, where she came to us from her home in the Catskills. By the way, she now lives there in a very picturesque, cozy, homespun Laura esque life. It was so great to talk to her. We're so grateful she shared her time with us. We hope you enjoy.
Thank you for agreeing to do this. We're so excited that you here.
Thank you for inviting me.
I'm thrilled. Nine year old me is beyond thrilled.
I must tell you, well, first of all, we should have you introduced yourself, Melissa. I'm sure everyone's going to recognize your voice when they listen to this, but you know, for the purposes of three people who might not know who you are, if you could just properly introduce yourself, that would be really wonderful.
Uh Hi, I am Melissa Gilbert and I had the incredible honor of playing Laura Ingalls Wilder Laura Ingles first, and then Laura Ingles Wilder ultimately on Little House in the Prairie, the television series.
How did that come to happen?
My first TV series? I was Everyron was gun Smoke. That's how old I am. I think I was about five or six at that point, and I really just only did little jobs here and there because my parents felt that meeting school was more important. But Little House in the Prairie came along, and it was my mom's favorite books, and I had read Little House in the Big Woods and was starting to read Little House in the Prairie that and I was pretty excited. And so
the decision was made that I would audition. And I don't know what everyone else was thinking, but I knew there were hundreds of girls auditioning too, so I figured it's never going to happen. And then it just, you know, was the ordinary process called back back, callback, callback screen test, and I got the part, and the adventure began, and what an adventure it was. It's been, you know, nearly fifty years since we first aired, so it has been
dipty years since we shot the pilot. Not a day goes by that I don't think about Little House in the Prairie or mention something to do with Little House in the Prey, or Laura or Rose or the Angles relatives, or something that has something to do with them, and they're so infused in my in my being at this point, I want to.
Talk about that in a bit because I'm curious what it's like to shoulder that legacy. But just going back to the audition process, did you, during that process audition with Michael Landon or any the other members of the who eventually became the cast.
I did. I got to go in and read with Michael early On. Kent McCrae, our producer, was there, and Susan Sukman, who later became Susan McCrae was there, and I remember Michael and the reason I remember Michael Lannon. I went to a private school in Los Angeles, the Buckley School, and I had auditioned and screen tested for a Little House and didn't know if I'd gotten the part, and I was at school one day in the lunch area, and this other girl ran up to me and she said,
are you Melissa, And I said yeah. She said I'm Leslie Landon. And my dad says, you're going to be Laura, And nobody knew. My agents hadn't gotten a call yet. My mother didn't know. I ran to the office because sand there's no cell phones. Then I ran to the office and said it was an emergency. I had to call my mom, and my mom called my agents, and my agents called the network, and Leslie got so grounded, so grounded. We're still friends to this day. But when
I auditioned, I didn't know who Michael Lennon was. I'd never watched Bonanza. My family was beside themselves. My grandfather, who was, you know, a very famous comedy writer and is all right, sent a note over to Michael and he knew him from writing the Dean Martin roasts. And my grandfather actually typed out my audition scenes for me on his typewriter, and my mom and my godmother, my grandmother,
everybody were They were all hysterical. And I was going to meet this Michael Landon who was supposed to be just the best and the most handsome and so talented, and I didn't know, and I went into the room when I first saw him, and soon as I met him, I knew exactly why they were all hysterical. He just he glowed, you know, he just he had it undeniable.
And the first time I heard him laugh, he had the best laugh of any human I've ever been around, aside from my kids and grandkids, who their laughs killed me. But his laugh was just so, this could be it. And then I found out later too, after the screen test that when they took this great tests to show it to NBC to the network, Michael only took mine and basically said, if it's not her, then we can't do it, which is wow. I'm glad I didn't know
that at the time. That would have been a lot for a nine year old to carry, but now looking back, it's immensely appreciated.
Well, speaking of a.
Lot for a nine year old to carry, you know, we spoke to Alison Arngrim and Karen Grassley, who both brought up on their own what an extraordinary presence you were as a nine year old. Like Alison Arngrim talks about meeting you for the first time, and I think described you as being sort of like a firecracker, but just how in command of yourself and.
How I guess in control.
You were almost like that you were very powerful force and really knew exactly what you wanted and what was expected.
Is that do you remember it like that?
I knew what my job was and I rejoiced that. I rejoiced then doing it. I love that job. I still love that job. I love to act. I have you know now at this point it had and have at least eight other careers. Acting is the one thing that doesn't necessarily come the easiest, but fits the best and brings me the most satisfaction. And so as a kid it was just as as maybe commanding and in control as they described me being. I felt like I was as full of wonder at the same time. I mean,
I just everything was a marvel to me. The fact that they brought me boots that had buttons and they had to teach me how to use a button hook to button those high button boots. They were legitimately button boots, no hidden zippers, and that to me was like the best game of dress up in the world. I mean, I there were for real cows and real horror says, and real chickens and other kids to play with. And we were outside, I think more than they were inside.
And there were all these great grown ups around who were like a bunch of crazy aunts and uncles. And there were all these wonderful men on the crew who taught me how to ride horses and would throw me in the air and catch me. I mean, it was heaven for a kid. I even loved going to school on the set, you know, I dilly dally. There was there was, I mean, it was common knowledge with the
assistant directors. They'd have to always say, hey, half Pipe go to school, because that was like the thing, Halfpipe go to school. And it would just trickle down to the whole crew where I'd be standing again, and you go, h Halfpipe go to school, and it would, you know, one by one, I'd walk by everyone. But even that part, even the school part, was great. I loved my teacher, missus Venir. I loved being in the classroom with Alison
when she was there. She got to go to regular school more than I did, but it was a really fun environment. And then being able to work with all of those extraordinary actors and crew, the adults, and to be considered their peer while we were working was an honor actually and very I didn't feel burdened by it ever.
I felt like it was gifted to me, like this was a tremendous responsibility, but they were giving me the responsibility because they knew I could do it, and that made me feel really good about myself as an actor. So he felt very supported on the set always. I never felt pushed or forced to do anything I didn't want to do. It was a very as kid friendly as a set could be. This was the kid friendliest. We were contained, but we weren't caged certainly.
Yeah.
Allison said that one of the things she remembered about Michael was people ask her that he respected her as a as a worker, you know, like he respected There was a lot of respect that you towards the child actors, that that they were getting paid and they were here to do a job as opposed to handholding.
I guess was the sense I got.
It was the same with anyone as long as we did our job, because we were not at We've our crew loved blessedly because they've been together so long since some since high Chaparral and then Bonanza and then Little House. They worked really really fast. There wasn't any time for delays. So as long as we were professional adults and children alike and knew our lines, our jobs, what we had
to do, and everything went smoothly, that was great. But if someone came in and didn't know or was unprofessional in any way, it wouldn't last very long and they'd be gone, And it didn't matter if they were a kid or an adult. There was just no time for unprofessionalism. When you say the crew called you half pint, that just sort of stood out to me. Was there because you're so young?
Was there sort of like a bleeding over of your character into your sort of idea of yourself and your relationship with Michael and the relationship Laura has with Pa.
Was that it ever sort of confusing or it was.
Never confusing, It was always really clear. I mean, I had my own father who I adored, but my father passed away when I was eleven, so two years into the series, I was nurturing this relationship on camera with Michael. When my father died, and our families were all really close, my parents were divorced and my mother was remarried, but my mom and my stepdad and Michael and his wife Lynn and their kids and and our family, we all vacation together. We went to Hawaii on Spring break together.
We had New Year's Eves together. We slept over each other's houses. So our relationship transcended just work. We were tight. And Michael, I always looked at him as a father, being you and mentor. But never was I confused between which one was my daddy and which one was And I call him my paw and he is. I mean, that's my paw. And my dad is my dad, and my birth father is my birth father. So you know
I'm able to keep straight. I'm adopted, so I have all these relationships that I'm very well able to keep straight. I know exactly the who. And oddly enough, for all of these wonderful men that have come in and out of my life, most of them have passed away, they're all still sort of there in me and an inspiration in so many ways. Michael, especially you.
Wrote in your book about him directing you and sort of getting you into the emotion. There was so much crime, There was so much crying on that show, I mean from him as much as any as much as anyone else. I'm just curious, like looking, I have no sense, but
like the sort of the sense of maybe emotional. I don't know if manipulation is too strong a word, but how how he would get you or any other of the kid actors sort of into place to access that emotion or as a kid, do you have access to it more easily?
For me?
I mean, I think I've always been a bit of an EmPATH, even as a kid, so accessing that kind of emotion was never difficult for me.
But it is.
I mean, on a week by week basis shooting a show like Little House in the Prairie, there's always someone crying, crying or running or running and crying at the same time, which I seemed to do in every episode, crying and running and running and crying. And there were times where it was those emotions were hard to tap into, and when those times would happen, Michael could kind of sense
it if he was there. And there were many many times where one that comes into mind, especially where I was having a hard time and just not quite in it, and he kind of cut everything and stopped everything and said, cure, take a walk. With me and walk me away from the set, and by the time he got about, I don't know, twenty feet away, he knelt down in front of me and he had tears streaming down his face and he looked at me and he said, do you have any idea how much I love you? And I
started crying. He said, okay, you're ready, can we go do the scene now?
Now?
Yeah, it was definitely manipulative, but was it in a bad way? I don't know about that. I think that he knew what I needed to get where I needed to go to do my job that day, and I didn't walk away from it feeling weird or bad or in hindsight as a as a highly therapized adult looking
back on that, I don't think. You know, there were things that we did in the Little House that I look back on and go, well, that was maybe weird or odd or I should not have been put in that uncomfortable position, But this was not one of those times. This is actually, as an adult, I wish I had directors like that around. When I'm, you know, having a hard time getting into something, sometimes you knell a little boost.
Alison talked about feeling that her character allowed her a safe space to express anger. And just you talking about losing your father when you were eleven, if it was a sort of safe space to express complicated grief.
Oh, one hundred percent. We were not great at grief at home. I grew up in a family where those sort of feelings, sadness and anger are considered bad, and so we don't do that, and so crying is back then was considered like a bad thing to do, and don't let the kids cry, and they shouldn't cry, and they shouldn't so we didn't talk about it. We didn't really share feelings, not like we do now, and certainly
not like I did with my kids. A perfect example is when my youngest son's pet mouse died and I insisted that we have an actual funeral for the mouse, and the kids didn't even want it, but I wanted them to have a moment to greet the mouse. I compensated for clearly, for stuff that I was missing. But I did have that outlet on the set, and that was that was a wonderful thing.
Now.
The other kind of odd thing was after my father died, the family edict of not discussing it carry it through to the work. The adults were told not to discuss it with me, probably because it would have made it hard for me to do my job, which would have delayed and cost a lot of You know, this is a business, and I don't remember anyone being particularly overly solicitous or extra nice or anything. It's just sort of regular.
But there were a couple extra hugs here and there during those months and during that time, and if I look back now, I can I remember that growd was kind of looking at me and clocking me and making sure that I was okay.
What when you say some of the situations you feel like maybe you shouldn't have been put in. I know you wrote about Dean Butler being cast, you know, as Almonzo. I have to say, in doing the podcast, it made me rethink those episodes where you get married, because even the character was quite young, and I was young when I was watching it, so I thought sixteen was very old, but even as a grown up, I'd never actually thought
it was. In that interview with him, I think I thought, you're right, I mean, so young and young for you to be put in a position with a grown man.
What do you think about that now?
Looking back, Well, I can tell you from the lens of today, you can't do that. There's no way they could shoot it. There's no way they would cast it that way, and there's certainly no way it would be handled the way it was handled, not with you know. Now we have intimacy coordinators and we have all this dialogue around being comfortable and feeling safe, which is amazing. Nobody talked to me about it. It was just it was nobody said, are you uncomfortable? Are you okay?
Is this all right?
It was just I remember being told that the Almonzo episodes were coming. Correct pronunciation, by the way, is al Manzo anyway? So I remember being told al Manso was coming, and my assumption was, you know, because Laura and al Manzo were not far apart in age in real life, not massively, so my assumption was there'd be someone coming. It was close in age to me, maybe one of
my contemporaries. And then when they told me that it was Dean and they showed me a picture and then he came to the set, I was taken aback because my first thought was that's a man. I mean, I can't even tell you what a girl I was. I mean I was a gidget. I was a tomboy. I was fourteen, fifteen years old, knock kneed, bucktooth, still had braces on, wasn't allowed to shave my things. Here comes this guy who shaves his face and then drives a car. I hadn't been on a date and kissed a boy.
Fortunately we had a little run up to the actual marriage and stuff. But by the time we got to the Sweet sixteen episode and the first kiss and all of that, it was you know, I knew Dean, and I liked Dean, and I got along with Dean, but I still felt like I was out of my element, to put it mildly, and yet I powered through and I did it. But looking back in hindsight, if I were producing or directing or the parent, it would have been completely different for my kid. Again, it's a reflection
of the times and where we were. And you know, you watch it now and it doesn't look weird even to me, And I'm watching it, going, oh god, I was so uncomfortable that day, but you know it didn't bother me at all. I'm climbing into bed with this grown up man and I still hadn't been on a date yet and we're having babies, and I did I think at that point I had kissed a boy.
Wow, that's wild.
I mean I think thinking back to how I watched it with it wasn't just that I wasn't questioning it. I don't recall anyone questioning it at the time. No, or even when I in reruns all through my team, like there was no there was no any anyone saying.
Well, maybe think about this.
It's almost like Laura went from she hit puberty and then she was married.
There was very little.
Experience and there was a very little, you know, difference between It's almost like they didn't know what to do with you once.
I think that's true. I think that you know, there comes a time where you've you got to contribute to the family, and the only way to do that at that time is to either be a teacher or get married or both, because there were no other opportunities for women. So that it is a reflection of the actual time. But I would defy anyone. I don't care who it is.
I don't care if it's Tom Hanks or Steven Spielberg to go to a studio or a network and say we're going to do a show where the fifteen year old marries the twenty six year old.
The fifteen year old in real life, not even like a twenty two year old who can fast for fifteen exactly exactly.
But now yeah, no, no, no, no no no, I just don't. You can't do it now and again, like I said, though when you watch it even today, it doesn't look odd and it certainly didn't appear awkward for either of us. But it was very awkward for me and uncomfortable. And I did do things like in scripts that would come down the pike that said, you know, and they kiss, I would go sneaking in and see,
can be change it to hug please? But I had to advocate for myself because the adults were not having the conversation with me.
And but you were listened to to some extent, I was. I was definitely listened to.
I can feel myself getting like getting shy and embarrassed again like I did then I did. I did a lot of blushing.
I mean, it's extraordinary.
I think two, what we're hitting on is like in some of those episodes that dealt with women. It felt the show, even at the time, felt a little aggressive, and then some episodes that dealt with race or even the amount of black people who were cast in the show felt very ahead of its time. The episode with Solomon, you know, frequently I see it come across you know, social media.
What do you hear about the.
Most that, especially after COVID, you know, when everyone was kind of going back to Little House and they were watching Quarantine and Plague and all of those episodes that we did that summer of twenty twenty, when the contry was going through with the country, the world was going through that massive social upheaval and unrest all around George Floyd and Breonna Taylor and all of the horrible injustices that were going on, the Wisdom of Solomon came up
a lot, and I was hearing on Twitter from people like Jamie Fox and Biola Davis who knew Little House in the Prairie was so woke, and I'm sitting and hungry. I did. I did. I knew because I had to do that scene where I had to try and wipe the black off of Todd Bridges's face, and I hated. I asked not to do it. I said to Michael, I can't do that. That's horrible. Who does that? He said, yeah, but we're trying to show people how wrong it is to be ignorant and how open Laura is to learning
something new. And I said, okay, well then I'll do it. But you're I mean, I had to say, you're a real Negro person and wipe the black off with his face. Was absurd to me. But once it was explained that this is what we were doing and the lessons we were teaching, that was impactful to me because I realized that our show was more than just Laura's story. It
was the story of our time at that time. Remember this was the seventies and the country was going through a great deal of civil unrest, the Civil Rights movement, the er I was post Vietnam. We did an episode about the soldier's return, Richard Mulligan playing the Civil War veteran coming home addicted to morphine while all of these
veterans were coming back from Vietnam addicted to heroin. It was the very timely and topical the episodes we did dealing with anti semitism and nativism and the rights of Native Americans. I mean, these are themes that keep coming back and coming back and coming back, and we even touched on women's rights and chauvinism and the mistreatment of women at the same time while marginalizing women to do nothing but poor coffee, sometimes for many episodes at a time.
One of the most stawn feminists I know was Karen Gressley, who was one of the great coffee pourers of all time. But then every once in a while they'd give her an episode where she put her foot down and said, well and remind Pa that she is his partner and not just his property. But again, we're reflecting the eighteen hundreds when women had zero rights, and a reflection of the nineteen seventies where women had maybe a half a point of rights.
But still, you know, certainly not where we are today and not where we need to be. Welcome back to our conversation with Melissa Gilbert. There were so many points we couldn't get to in our already lengthy episode on the television series, and something that we only slightly touched on were the comp all occasions of Michael Landon as
a person. If you're a little house diehard, you might know that Karen Grassley, who played Caroline Ingoles on the show came out with a memoir a few years back that detailed a bitter contract dispute between her and Michael over her salary, and she also opened up about the general misogyny on.
The Little House set in the seventies and eighties.
Unsure of how those dynamics might have affected the kids on set, we asked.
Melissa what she thought of all this.
Now, were you aware as a kid?
I know just from talking to other cast members that the kids shot during the day and then some of the grown up scenes were shot sort of after the kids went home. But were we ever aware of the tension that Karen Grassley wrote about in her book between her and Michael and sort of the contract dispute.
I wasn't aware of the contract dispute. I was aware of the misogynistic humor by and large, not just Michael, as the entire all of the men of the crew. And I heard the jokes and they were some of them were horrible and completely inappropriate. You know, those sets
are tend to be very rible body places anyway. But the anti women, or the demeaning of women, I should say jokes didn't impact me because I sort of didn't Some of them I didn't actually understand either, but like some of them were pretty raunchy, and I could see Karen stiffen and bristle and eye roll and walk away, and I knew that that was inappropriate and was making her feel bad and or angry. And I knew that that was wrong. I didn't. I was a kid, it wasn't I'm not going to get in the middle of
the adults. I didn't in the middle of my parents arguing. So I wasn't about to get in the middle of my mom pa either. It's not my place in MI insight. I think you know. I read her book one hundred percent her experience, and it is a legitimate experience. Actually had lunch, oh gosh a while back with Jen Landon, and it was right when Karen's book came out, and she said to me, I don't understand what all the hooplaw is with all the Michael Landon supporters who are
mad at Karen for telling the truth. She said, I totally imagine my dad was a misogynist back then. That's just the way it was. He was that guy. Doesn't mean that he's evil, it was just he was a reflection of his times. I mean, one of the things I think about often is what sort of television would Michael Lander be making now after the last few years.
And I don't think it would be anything. He would be functioning the way he did then, and I think he'd be telling stories that are timely and important and topical. I think he'd be appalled at what's going on in the world today in many many ways, or at least I hope. But based on what I know of that man, he would have grown with the times.
You can see evidence of that in some of the episodes and also touched by an Angel. I mean in certain way, he was so progressive, so much crying. It was so he cried so much all the time, and I think that is progressive. For he was also, you know, shirtless, oiled up, with perfect hair, and I think the collision of those two things is.
A contradiction.
Yes, I think so too. But he was a contradiction as well. This was a man who who espoused family values and community values and was married three times and had children with three different women, and was deeply flawed and human. But who isn't doesn't mean he's a bad person. It just means he's a human person, and he tried to tell stories that he felt were important and impactful. It's all you can ask from the filmmaker. What are the episodes you hear about the most? I hear about
The Lord is My Shepherd a lot. It's my favorite too, and it's very hard for me to watch sometimes. It's even hard for me to talk about it. In fact, I can sort of feel like a lump in my throne. Now. I hear about Bunny and the race. People really dig the wheelchair push down the hill.
That's the only time my mother walked into the family room and said, Laura seems mean. And I was like, Laura's amazing, and my mother said, I don't. I don't think that was a nice thing to do, and then exited the room.
Well, Laura was pushed to the brink. And I'll tell you Alison got her revenge. Many years ago. I had to go in for a colonoscopee and she took me and when it was over, they wouldn't let me walk out of the surgery center. I had to go out a wheelchair and she pushed it and she kept threatening to shut me down a number of different hills that day, even though I didn't. I said, I, you know something, my fallow, I didn't write it.
Let me do that.
The other thing I hear about a lot too is the mud fight people like a lot when Alison and I got physical.
Yeah, I mean, I actually hear that from a lot of fans, and I think, I mean, and there's one of appeal to that, But I think it was having girls express sort of like complicated emotions to each other and that jealousy and competition, which felt very recognizable at that age.
I think the other thing that that that informed those performances, and maybe the audience was getting it subliminally, was that we really loved each other dearly. And I've always said, you know, you don't really have to necessarily get along all that well with someone you're doing a love scene with, but boy, you have to love and trust the person you're doing a fight sing with.
That's amazing.
I'm curiously how sort of I just want to talk a bit about your you know, after a little house career, the it feels like the professionalism of that set set you up well because then you became you know, president of SAG, you ran for office.
Are the are there.
Direct connections between coming off that experience that moved you into sort of other positions of power.
There was a step in the middle that happened actually when I was fourteen. My mother took me to meet with a manager man named ray Cats Raymond Katz. He established my production company then when I was fourteen, Half Pint Productions, and asked what stories I wanted to tell, what characters I wanted to play, and my mom and I had talked about it before I went in, and we talked about doing The Miracle Worker and me playing Helen Keller, and that started while we were doing Little House.
So I was actually producing and starring in my own films before Little House ended. So we did the Mira Porker Diary Friend Frank Splunder in the Grass, and that Little House ended and we continued working. So I learned how to produce at that time too. And also remember I wasn't just there working and playing. I was also on the Little House set, watching Michael and Kent and watching the crew and learning everybody's jobs, which was something
Michael wanted me to do. I knew what the greensmen did, I knew what the Cress Services people did. I knew what the wranglers did. I knew what everyone's job was, so I had a respect for that sort of team. And when we went to do our own productions, we actually just took the little house crew with us. We had that same fantastic land and work ethic in the
Half Pint productions as well. And so as I got older, I got more and more involved, and eventually, many many years later, ran and got elected as the President of Screen Actors Guild. And while I was there, I got elected to the executive Council of the afl CIO and the California Film Commission, and so I really got involved in the political realm, and that just seemed a natural progression. Many many years later, when I was asked to run for office, I thought, well, yeah, like, I think I
can do this. It's supposed to be by the people for the people, right, so I'm the people.
Why not Do you think about doing it again?
No, I doubt I think I was rescued. I think my neck, which decided to give out and I needed to have a third massive spinal surgery, had to drop out of the race. That was twenty sixteen. It was kind of a it would have been a really difficult ear to a couple of years to serve and travel back and forth, obviously with my neck, but also with
the political climate just worsening and worsening and worsening. I think that I was saved from having to deal with a lot more emotional turmoil than I do from a distance. Does not mean I'm not completely involved in I'm on the Democratic Committee up here. I'm very involved in the issues that I'm passionate about, and I think I can
do a lot more work on the ground. I would rather be on the ground in a protest than in a chamber making those kinds of decisions and trying to pass laws in a system that's clearically broken and is not getting anywhere no matter what we do. The pendulum swings, the pendulum swings, the pendulum s faith, it's and it's just it's too frustrating. I feel like I can do much.
More from here. What has it been like for you? You to shoulder the legacy of Laura. I was thinking of sort of like Anne of green Gables and Megan.
Fellows that Anna green Gables is a fictional character, but you like Laura Ingles Wilder making the decision at age sixty five to sit down and write her life story has impacted your life in such enormous ways, it's hard to grasp, Like, what is it like.
To shoulder all of that?
Really?
I mean, it sounds so trite to say this, but it is what it is. It's what I've been given, and it is a gift. I do feel very honored to have been chosen, and I do feel very blessed that this is my life. Because of it, I feel a certain responsibility to the stories, to the legacy of Laura and the Ingles family and Rose and everyone around her.
It's interesting my husband and I were talking about this sort of subject recently because the first three characters really that I played of import in my life life our Lora Angeles Wilder, Helen Keller, and Ann Frank, not only to those tremendous acting opportunities, but all three of those women or people have monstrous legacies, I mean unbelievable import to the world, and not just to America but to
the world. And so I think if I get too caught up in shouldering the responsibility of that, I'll feel very, very weighted down. I felt a lot more responsibility to behave like a nice young lady in public when you know, when I really just kind of wanted to be a bit of a wild child myself in my late teens and early twenties. I remember, actually, when I was a kid, I bought one letter. I wasn't allowed to read my fan mail, which is a good thing. There was one letter that I got a hold of when I was
about fifteen that had been hidden from me. I think it came when I was about twelve. It was from a little girl who wrote and said, I wish I could be more like you, because my dad said he would hit me less if I was. And I'm really glad I didn't see that till I was older. But still, that's like, that's a lot for a kid, so they were right to keep that from me.
That's a lot for anyone. That'd be a lot for you. Right now, These are the.
Things that women will come up to me cry and say, you know, my childhood was miserable. I was molested by an uncle. And little house in the prairie was my escape. And I love that and I appreciate it, and I am there for it. But I can only do so much of that, and then I'm just depleted. You know, it's like being a therapist a little bit. Wow, it was a big show. It was a really it's an honor. It's a treasured responsibility, is the best way to put it.
And I hope it continues in so many different ways too. I would love to continue telling the stories, living these stories, bringing these stories to life. We'll see you know.
From our last episode, you know that Melissa Gilbert has most recently carried on Laura's legacy with her lifestyle brand, Modern Prairie.
Our producer and co host Joe.
Piazza stepped in to ask Melissa how it came to be.
Yeah, I mean I love it, by the way, I love everything on the site.
I want it all.
I want to decorate my cabin with Modern Prairie. But I want to hear a little bit about how it came to be. How did this become a business?
I have had this sort of little hatchling of an idea for a couple decades that there's something more to do with just the entire sort of prairie ethos. There was it all for me. It starts with them, of all objects, a butterbell and if you don't know what a butter bell is a butter keeper is I actually have one I'm looking at right now. It's a ceramic holder for butter. You put the butter in it, and you put it in the croc and you put it upside down in water, and it keeps your butter fresh
and soft without having to refrigerate it. And they've been around for eons. People look at them and go, oh my god, that's so cool. And I always thought, let's create something around a butterbell and go from there and take us back to these sweet, simple things, which really are the best things after all, just full on Loura angles Wilder celebration. But how do we do this? And so I had conversations with the branding department at the agency and put together decks of ideas of things that
these could be. And it kind of came and went, came and went, but it was always in the back of my mind. And two years ago, on my birthday, I had friends over up here, my friends Johnny and Roswell, who are the first friends we made up here, and I was talking about this idea for this retail line kind of lifestyle the little house I don't know, and I said, I want to do this, and I showed them the deck. They went and Johnny said, I know this woman, Nicole o'hazi, who has a company who's looking
for something like this. Let me connect you to well. Nicole and I got along like a house of fire, like instantaneously, and we had a few conversations about what it could be, and she came back to me with her version of it, which was a bajillion times better than my deck, and we signed papers and said let's go. And it really started out as yes, a retail line
sort of, but there's more to it than that. It's a place for obviously women over a certain age, the mature woman like me, and it's not just about buying things. It's now grown into a community. And what's fascinating to me. You know, we have all these workshops and everything from you know, how to paint with watercolor, to how to deal with grief during the holidays, to how to get unstuck, which is a big thing with women over a certain age.
You know, their kids are gone. We're reassessing what we want to do with this last third of our lives. Do we want to stay in the business we're in, Do we want to follow our passion? Do we want to travel?
Are we?
Are we alone? Are we caring for aging parents? Are we you know, all of these things that we're dealing with at this part in our lives. There's no space for a community for people to talk about these things. So we started this sort of we created this space with these workshops, and in the beginning, you know, we
have these very deep emotional workshops. While it's reached a point where they're talking to each other and supporting each other through transitions, through changes, through they're becoming a community. And what's kind of the heart of Prairie for me is the community aspect. There's nothing more reassuring than knowing that you're not the only one who's experiencing whatever it is,
whether it's a most physical, psychological, doesn't matter. To know that there are people who've gone through ahead of you, and that there are people coming up behind you who will follow in your footsteps and come to you for that advice. That's what community is, and we support each other and we it's about love, and that's again it goes back to Lourer Engles Wilder and the Engles family and the sweet simple things really are those are the
real things, compassion, tolerance, understanding, and love. So that's the basis of modern prairie, and now it's just grown into this thing.
What do you think it is about this kind of prairie aesthetic, the simplicity, this back to basics that is so cozy for people. Is it nostalgia? Is it? Is it just aesthetics? It's just nice to look at. It's modern prairie. It's the nap dresses. There is a whole cottage core thing happening.
Why do people love it so much as it is cozy? I think I think we all really rediscovered cozy during the lockdown too. I mean, I defy anyone to tell me that they were doing zooms without pajama bottoms or sweatpants. I mean we were dressing from the waist up for whatever it was. And I think, you know, there's there's
value in that. When you can't get toilet paper, suddenly everything else kind of falls away, right, I mean, manicures are irrelevant, Eyelash extensions are irrelevant, going to the movies, it's not important. What's really important is being able to have contact with your loved ones, making sure they're safe and comfortable and being comfortable yourself. Look, when that happened, everybody was baking bread so much so that nobody could
get flour. That says something. Bread is the ultimate comfort food, right, and it's the least expensive. It's been around for eons. So bread is like the grounding, hardy, cozy food, and we all went back to that. So I think modern Prairie's space to remind people of that cozy basic wellmy war, those nostalgic feelings brought up to the current times. Hence the modern.
There's also a beautiful comparison to be made in modern Prairie is this community for mature women who are looking at the next part of their life and thinking what does this look like? And it was very similar for Laura. She wanted something different in that last half of her life. She was writing these books as a mature woman of a certain age, and I think there's a really interesting parallel there.
Did you think about that.
When you were launching That's something that is kind of a universal experience for all women. I think you guys will find as you age to where I am now, there's a it's not a midlife crisis, it's sort of a not even midlife. I mean, who lives to be a one hundred and sixteen ladies, It's a mid life ree assessment, right, Am I doing what brings me joy? Am I doing what makes me feel like I'm contributing the most? Am I forcing myself to do something I
don't want to do? Laura definitely did that. It also grew I think for her, based on historical research and my research, it grew out of her place of necessity too, because the craft in the teen's twenties wiped out the entire family's finances, and Laura had the book, she had been writing it, and necessity put them in a position where she had to then actually make them sellable, which is why they became children's books are young adult books. So it was a combination of things. But I think
it really maybe not so intentionally Laura. Laura probably blazed a trail into how to go through that kind of transition from you know, farm wife with a true partnership with her husband, which was also very unusual for that time. I mean they were they did not do anything without consulting one another, nor did they tell each other what to do, which I thought was fascinating. They had a really modern relationship. Laura al Manzo. Al Manzo actually, if anything,
she was the one in charge. I think, yes, I think too, And I think we should make the book people happy and call him by his real name.
Well, it's interesting to me, Melissa, when you say so much of modern prairie is prettiness, because just when you said that, so much of Little House's prettiness, right, Like, throughout all of the struggles she writes about, there's a focus on pleasing things, right, the pleasing how pas scallops, the paper on the shelves, and the sprigs of flowers and the buttons, like, there is a real focus on
the details of prettiness throughout these horrible events. So that's an interesting sort of crossover that I hadn't That made me rethink sort of certain descriptions in the book.
Those maybe the things that we focus on when things are hard, you know, let's look to that. And then again, if you go back to the books, the way she wrote about food, food was like a religion, you know, and glorious. I mean, I remember reading those books when I was eight nine years old and being hungry and my mouth watering as I'm turning these pages and reading about you know, maple candy and the snow and which I've I made this year for the first time. Oh
how did it go? It was fascinating. It's taffy. It doesn't get it. I thought it would get like crunchy, but it's taffy. It hardens into like a almost like a CARAMELI like a maple caramel. It's good. You have to do it with butter, though it has to be butter and maple.
Serup?
Would you ever? I don't know?
You I must you must have visited some of the Laura houses over the years. Is there any potential of modern prairie moving into these locations or or what was that experience like of going to the houses?
Like funny that you bring that up, because it hadn't even occurred to me to take Marbury. I mean, we're not fricking mortar of any kind yet. So and and you know, there there may be a world where we collaborate with a specific museum to create something for them through one of our makers. By the way, all of the people who make our products, or women just saying that's part of it. We're supporting female businesses. Also that that's actually really important aspect of this. I have visited
them all. It has taken me a very long time. When I did the Little House Musical, when I played Ma, when I played Caroline, we if we were playing a city that was within two three hours of a homestead, the whole company would get in a bus and we would all go. And so that was my first chance to see this. Smet and Plum Creek and Walnut Grove I did. We were nowhere near Mansfield, so I didn't
get to go. We went to Mansfield. My husband and I went last year we were doing a number of cross country drives and a year before last actually take that back, and I decided to go when they were closed for the day. So we went in, just the two of us, and they opened the museum and the houses for us. And that property, not just because it's the most recent one in my memory, but that property more than any of them is, especially because that's where
they're buried, and that's where Roses buried. That place really got me because you could really that was their place, you know, the counters in the kitchen that he cussed
and built, because she was so tiny. It was just enchanting and it felt incredibly special being there, and we were actually get a camp in the campground across the way, and there was a tornado warning and so we decided to drive to We drove to Saint Louis in this insane storm and it was very I kept saying to Tim, my husband, can you imagine doing this in a wagon? I mean, we're in the cars blowing all over the highway and there's hail and you know, tornadoes, god knows where.
It was pitch black, but just crazy weather. And all I could think was what those crossings must have been like for the Ingles family from South Dakota to Missouri, to Florida to San Francisco to visit rows and there's a toughness. I think that that also to that beauty
that we have to tap into as well. That that was the thing too, is you know, I think one of the things that came out of the pandemic and the resurgence of or re appreciation of Little House is there a reminder that if we can make it through that, we can make it through this.
Everyone at all the houses loves you.
By the way, just to pass on a little where your ears burning your name was obviously came up frequently in a very genuine and loving way. Ah, that's no what Everyone had such nice things to say about you.
Oh well that's good. That's that mustn't me. And I was in a good mood on the day. It would be terrible if you sit mutely whipped to all those places and they just don't like it. You were so.
No, it came up. It came up without us asking it was. I wasn't actually inquired or anything.
It just came up out of And you know, when you're out there, everybody there is very down to earth and genuine.
So yeah, there's pretense, there's no. They just love the entire angles experience the family Lauren. And they are they they are the keepers of the legacy. I mean I look at those guys and I feel like a little bit of a poser, you know. They they're in it. They're touching her belongings on a daily basis, which I please.
When we were on tour with the musical, there was one which place we went to, man, it was De Smet and they took me into a vault and they opened a drawer and pulled out one of her nightgowns and let me touch it. And I just lost it. I just I had step away, so I was afraid I would get tears on the nightgown and that would be bad.
It.
So that's that. I think that kind of in a nutshell, goes back to your question about how I feel about carrying this sort of mantle. I touch her nightgown and I cry, so obviously there's a lot of weight there.
Yeah, we heard the fiddle being played and that felt.
Oh please. I had Michael still for years, which I finally auctioned off one of the fiddles. There was a prop and I could barely contain myself. I'd open the case just to smell it.
Do you have thoughts on Rose?
I mean, we asked everyone and because of course the you know, the conspiracy. Did she write the books but also Rose herself? It's a lot, But what are your thoughts on Rose?
Do you have any?
I think that that based on all of the reading I've done, in the research I've done, I think that roses to Laura what Laura was to Ma. This is like a generational evolution of rebellion that has passed on. And I think that as much as Laura sort of
gave her mother fits in her wildness. Rose took it so much further, and some of it was by choice and some of it was just in her I think from what I understand, you know, at that point in her life, Laura in Mansfield had gone from being basically a washer woman doing other people's laundry to a very important member of society and a leader of the society, and had reached this really interesting place in her life.
For the wild child, she was to be someone who was so concerned about what other people thought of her because she was so wildly uncomfortable with her daughter coming home with a woman her pants wearing, smoking, divorced daughter who really was living her life is her completely authentic self, and coming into this world where everything was very rigid and very you know, where Caroline had sort of that religious church going fear of outsiders. Laura just didn't want
anyone to know that. She projected this image of who she was, and I don't think Rose fit into that. However, their relationship was so sympiotic, you know, their finances were in twine, they were so in met I think that they had, you know, a very complicated other daughter relationship which we can all relate to if anybody could could or possibly unravel the complications of any mother daughter relationship. For me, I will give them a medal. It just it is what it is. That's why God blessed me
with four sons. I do absolutely believe that Rose helped craft the books. I don't think she wrote them. I think she crafted them. I think she yeah. I mean, if you read Pionaregirl, it's incredibly unwieldy, and I don't think it would have sold back then. I think that the editors were right. They needed to find a market. I mean, people weren't spending money, so that it had to be something special, and of course making it something
for children was entirely appropriate. And I think Rose really helped to do that and to take these things apart and put them back together. One hundred percent. I think she was an absolute ghost editor. I don't think she was a ghostwriter. I think many of us owe a lot to Laura and Rose for being the trailblazers that they were, what they did for female authors and what they did for women in general by telling that their
sides of those stories and that history is major. I don't know if we would have had a woman's voice back then you know, if we would have been able to look back on a woman's voice it had it not been.
For them, Melissa, We're so grateful.
Thank you, Ah, thanks you guys. I so appreciate it.
This was fun, is it? Melissa? Amazing?
We had such a great time talking to her. If fulfilled a few childhood dreams in that room. We hope you enjoyed this. If there's other guests we've talked to throughout the show that you'd want to hear an extended interview from, then tell.
Us maybe we'll release more of these in the future.
This episode was produced by me Emily Maronov as well as Mary Do and Shina Ozaki. Sound design and mixing was done by Amanda Brose Smith. Our wonderful theme and additional music was composed by Elise McCoy. We are executive produced by Glennis McNichol, Joe Piazza, Nikki e Tor and Ali Perry. Thank you, as always to CDM Studios for recording this conversation. This is the conversation that first paired us with our guardian Angel engineer, Kathleen.
We love you, Kathleen.
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Thank you for listening.