Laura Ingalls Wilder Summer Reading Program Little House on the Prairie “A long time ago, when all the grandfathers and grandmothers of today were little boys and little girls or very small babies, or perhaps not even born, Pa and Ma and Mary and Laura and Baby Carrie left their little house in the Big Woods of Wisconsin.”
aura takes us with her family from the dense, dark woods of Wisconsin to the wide open prairies of LKansas in her third book, Little House on the Prairie, published in 1935. In quintessential American pioneer fashion, they traveled by covered wagon over days and weeks to a place they had never seen and turned a spot of empty prairie into home and livelihood.
In this and all Little House books, Laura lovingly describes the music her Pa made a part of their daily life. He had an amazing repertoire of songs committed to memory. Laura mentioned 127 different songs in her series. She gave us a wonderful record of the music our ancestors enjoyed, shared mostly by families and friends singing them together. Here’s the background of a few songs included in Little House on the Prairie.
Old Dan Tucker (from the chapter titled “The House on the Prairie”)
“Old Dan Tucker was a fine old man; He washed his face in the frying-pan, He combed his hair with a wagon-wheel. And died of the toothache in his heel.”
Identifying the original author of older songs is sometimes difficult. When songs often passed directly from one musician to another, the words or melody might change. Someone might write new music for old lyrics or new lyrics for old music. The origin of “Old Dan Tucker” is unclear, though it is commonly attributed to Daniel Decatur Emmet. As an old man, he claimed to have written it about 1830, when he was a teenager. (Sheet music printed in 1843 is shown at right.) Emmet became a traveling performer in minstrel shows. His most famous composition is “Dixie,” though some debate his authorship of that song, too!
continued There Is a Happy Land (from the chapter titled “Pa Goes to Town”)
“There is a happy land, Far, far away, Where saints in glory stand, Bright, bright as day.”
This hymn was written by a teacher, Andrew Young, of Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1838. Leonard Breedlove adapted the tune in 1850 from an Indian melody (Asian Indian, not Native American).
Battle Cry of Freedom (from the chapter titled “Going Out”)
“And we’ll rally round the flag, boys, We’ll rally once again, Shouting the battle-cry of Freedom!”
This was one of the most popular songs of the Civil War. George F. Root composed it in 1862 in response to Abraham Lincoln’s call for 300,000 volunteers for the Union Army. (See sheet music at right.)
Ma’s brother Joseph Quiner was a Union solider who died after being wounded at the Battle of Shiloh in April of 1862. Hiram and James, two of Pa’s brothers, also enlisted in the Union army.