Blurred Autobiography
Because I volunteer for the Chicago Humanities Festival I am allowed a few free tickets. This time I chose to go hear Pamela Smith Hill who is the editor of Laura Ingalls Wilder's Pioneer Girl: The Annotated Autobiography and Laura Ingalls Wilder: A Writer's Life . Hidden away since the 1930s, Laura Ingalls Wilder s never-before-published autobiography reveals the true stories of her pioneering life. Some of her experiences will be familiar; some will be a surprise. Hill clues us in. Laura worked outside the home beginning at around age 9.Her and her sister Mary (before her illness and eventual blindness) washed dishes at a hotel her mother and father, Ma and Pa, ran. There were times when Laura was not safe. Pioneer Girl includes dark material, details of domestic abuse, love triangles, alcoholism, and a near-sexual assault. This was LIW first attempt at memoir writing and had an adult audience in mind. It was only later, with her daughter, Rose Wilder Lane alre...