How Laura's 1919 pandemic thoughts can help us

In my to-be-read pile, I came to a book a few weeks ago, which I bought second hand at the library sale. Oh, the treasures I’ve found there and this was to be another one of them. It’s a collection of articles by Laura Ingalls Wilder before she wrote the Little House books. 

Spanning the 1910’s and 1920’s, she touches on a variety of topics including forest preservation, the benefits of electricity, how hard farm families work, women’s voting rights, integrity, the struggles during WWI, and how to find joy. Laura was a surprisingly progressive woman for her time and though she did not have much formal education, she was an avid reader, and this extensive reading informed her writing. These articles were previously unpublished for modern audiences.

The kids and I on the front porch of Laura's little house on Rocky Ridge Farm in the Ozarks where she wrote the Little House books.

As I read, I realized this woman also lived through a pandemic. The Spanish Flu pandemic overlapped WWI by six months. In one piece, she writes, “The influenza epidemic has been particularly hard on farm folks, coming as it did just at the close of the season’s work when country people were beginning to relax from the strain of raising the year’s crops. It is at this time we usually meet one another and become acquainted again. There has been so much depending on our work, especially for the last two years, that we have attended to our business even more strictly than usual, and we were really lonesome for some good times together. But, being advised by the doctors not to gather in crowds, we have stayed at home as much as possible.”

Sound familiar? Aren’t we at this point all lonesome for some good times together? In another piece, she writes, “We have been working unusually hard for two years and have been under a nervous strain besides. We have each adjusted our burden so that we are more or less able to carry it, but a little addition to it makes it, in some cases, unbearable. It was the last straw in the camels’ load that broke his back, you know.”

What I experience and what I hear from others is that we are all somewhat on edge and “under a nervous strain.” The editor of Laura’s writings footnoted the “Nervous strain” as referencing the War but of course, the editor didn’t know how nerve wrecking a pandemic could also be back when the book was published in the 1990’s. Sometimes just one thing will nudge us in the wrong direction. For myself, I spoke sharper than I normally would have to a friend this week and felt terrible for it. Even though my apology was accepted, I still hated that it happened.

After the war and pandemic had passed, Laura wrote, “As the years pass, I am coming more and more to understand that it is the common, everyday blessings of our common everyday lives for which we should be particularly grateful. They are the things that fill our lives with comfort and our hearts with gladness—just the pure air to breathe and the strength to breath it; just warmth and shelter and home folks; just plain food that gives us strength; the bright sunshine on a cold day; and a cool breeze when the day is warm.”

Laura learned to focus on the simple things. Good advice for us today.

Her Christian faith undergirded her life and carried her through many, many hard times. These included her family almost starving to death one winter when she was a child, the death of her own child, the loss of their home in a fire, severe illness, the loss of a farm claim, and the challenges of a being a farmer’s wife as she worked as hard and long as her husband Almanzo did. 

Her writings and life give me hope for the times we are in. One night when she was a child, she was worrying over a difficult financial circumstance her family faced. A friend writes of her that as she was praying, “gradually she had a feeling of a hovering, encompassing Presence, of a Power comforting and sustaining her.” This reminded me of 2 Corinthians 1:3-5, “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.”

I know that there are those of you reading who are facing a difficult health diagnosis for yourself or someone you love. Some of you have what seem insurmountable financial issues. Some are grieving. Some have circumstances in your family that are taking your breath away. And all of that is in addition to dealing with the strain of a pandemic that just seems to go on and on. I am praying for you all the supernatural presence of God in these times that like Laura you would sense that “hovering, encompassing Presence, of a Power comforting and sustaining” you in these days.

God bless you all.

The name of the collection I referenced is Little House in the Ozarks, The Rediscovered Writings and appears to still be in print from online sources.

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