Ex-South Dakotan writes Wilder biography

By Lynn Taylor Rick, Journal staff | Monday, November 26, 2007

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Even as a young girl growing up in Missouri, author Pamela Smith Hill felt a kinship with Laura Ingalls Wilder.

“For me, she was a Missouri writer,” Smith Hill said. “Looking at Wilder as a Missouri writer gave me hope that someone from Missouri could be a writer.”

Later, when Smith Hill moved to South Dakota, her attitude about Wilder and her “Little House” book series evolved.

“I began to appreciate her skills as a writer. I think no one describes the prairie like her. … She ranks right up there with Willa Cather,” Smith Hill said. “I would say that my interest in her has been a part of my life since I was a child.”

That interest continues with Smith Hill’s new book, “Laura Ingalls Wilder: A Writer’s Life,” commissioned by the South Dakota State Historical Society.

The book explores Wilder’s evolution as a frontier writer as well as her turbulent relationship with her daughter and editor, Rose Ingalls Lane.

In the book, Smith Hill, who now lives in Oregon, addresses the recent speculation that Rose Ingalls Lane ghostwrote her mother’s popular children’s series.

Smith Hills rejects the idea, citing Wilder’s unpublished and unedited autobiography, “Pioneer Girl.”

The autobiography shows an author with the same voice and style used in the “Little House” series, Smith Hill said. “She was totally in command of her writing,” Smith said.

That’s not to say that Rose Ingalls Lane didn’t play an important role in her mother’s career.

A successful writer herself, Lane edited the majority of Wilder’s manuscripts and guided her career.

“Rose really functioned as her mother’s editor,” Smith Hill said. “But there’s no doubt about where those stories originated. The suggestions that Rose made to her mother about voice or point of view … are all the kinds of issues that editors discuss with their writers.”

Smith Hill believes Lane’s editing style may have given the false impression that Lane maintained control over her mother’s books.

“Rose Wilder Lane was a very successful writer herself and she came to her career as a writer from a career as a newspaper reporter,” she said. “Newspaper editors can be pretty ruthless … Rose Wilder Lane brought that kind of aggressive editing to her mother’s books.”

Despite her aggressive style, however, Smith Hill doesn’t believe Wilder was ever bullied into anything. “It’s very clear that Wilder was completely engaged with her materials … Even though I think Rose Wilder Lane was a fairly aggressive editor, she made changes with her mother’s permission.”

Still, the relationship between the two women was a bumpy one.

Smith Hill poured over the correspondence between the mother and daughter and drew conclusions of her own about their family dynamics. 

One of those conclusions is that Rose Wilder Lane may have been bipolar, a disorder marked by periods of depression alternated with manic behavior.

Smith Hill points to Lane’s bouts with depression and her impulsive outbursts toward her mother. “She says some pretty harsh things about her mother,” Smith Hills said. “I think was a difficult (relationship) in many ways.”

She also points to incidents of plagiarism by Lane. “While Lane was helping Wilder edit and revise ‘Little House in the Big Woods’ … Lane was using the same material; in essence plagiarizing her material for an adult novel (called ‘Let the Hurricane Roar’).”

“I suspect that Wilder didn’t know that Rose was writing ‘Let the Hurricane Roar’ at the same time,” Smith Hill said. “At that point, as writers, I think it was very, very difficult.”

Despite the drama of their relationship, Smith Hill hopes that “Little House” fans will be able to appreciate what both women brought to the table; a table that produced one of the most popular children’s book series of all time.

“Lane helped her mother to discover that she should be writing for children and not adults,” Smith Hill said. “I think that was a great gift.”

Contact Lynn Taylor Rick at 394-8414 or lynn.taylorrick@rapidcityjournal.com.