Caroline Ingalls
Caroline Ingalls | |
|---|---|
| File:Charles&CarolineIngalls 2.jpg Caroline Ingalls with her husband Charles Ingalls | |
| Born | December 12, 1839 |
| Died | April 20, 1924 (aged 84) |
| Spouse | (his death) |
Caroline Ingalls, born Caroline Lake Quiner (December 12, 1839–April 20, 1924) was the mother of Laura Ingalls Wilder, author of Little House on the Prairie.
She was born in what is today Brookfield, Wisconsin, then Town of Brookfield, the fifth of seven children of Henry Quiner and Charlotte (Tucker) Quiner. Her brothers were Joseph, Henry, and Thomas, and her sisters were Martha and Eliza.
When she was five her father died in a shipping accident, reportedly on Lake Michigan, near the Straits of Mackinac. Her mother eventually got remarried to Frederick Holbrook, a farmer who lived nearby. They had one child together, Charlotte "Lottie" Holbrook. Ingalls evidently loved and respected her stepfather, and would later honor his memory by naming her only son after him.
At the age of sixteen, Ingalls started working as a teacher. On February 1, 1860 she married Charles Ingalls. She eventually gave birth to five children: Mary, Laura, Caroline "Carrie", Charles Frederick "Freddie" and Grace. Freddie died at the age of 9 months. He was born November 1, 1875 in Walnut Grove, Minnesota – and died August 27, 1876 in South Troy, Minnesota, of undetermined causes. In her unpublished biography Pioneer Girl, Wilder merely refers to the fact that he was frequently "sick" and that "one terrible day, he straightened out his little body and died".
Ingalls traveled extensively with her family, but they finally settled in De Smet, South Dakota. She died at the age of 84, and was buried at De Smet Cemetery.
In the media
The Caroline Years, an extension of the Little House on the Prairie series, by Maria D. Wilkes and Celia Wilkins, follows Ingalls from her fifth year to her late teens, up to her engagement to Charles. The names, dates and people mentioned in the books are true, but much of the content of the books is, by necessity, fictionalized. Other titles about Ingalls' life include Little House in Brookfield, which is fictionalized, but written in the style of the Little House series.