Character Profile for Almanzo James Wilder

Anyone who knows me, knows that Almanzo Wilder has long been one of my favorite Little House on the Prairie characters. While not the most complex of people, Almanzo's temper and stubborn pride could get the better of him at times.



As I began compiling this character profile, I thought about the wonderful ways in which Dean Butler made the Almanzo from Laura's books real to me. While Dean's physical appearance--most notably his height--did not resemble the real Almanzo's, I've always felt Dean captured the essence of the strong, quiet man that I've read about in Laura's books and the books by Wilder biographers such as William Anderson, John E. Miller, and Donald Zochert. 

Dean might not have known it, but some show fans noticed how his character tucks his napkin into his shirt, as Almanzo did in Laura's books. I've long wondered but never have dared to ask Dean about that crooked smile Almanzo sports, usually when talking with Laura. It's the mannerism that I mention in almost all my fan fiction stories because it is what makes Almanzo unique to me.

I hope you enjoy my impressions of Almanzo Wilder as portrayed by Dean Butler in Little House on the Prairie.

WARNING! CONTAINS SPOILERS!!!



The moment Almanzo Wilder came into town looking for his sister, the new school teacher, Miss Wilder (Back to School), Laura Ingalls’s life was never the same. Stumbling over her words, Laura was immediately attracted to Almanzo, who was several years older than she. Perhaps it was Almanzo’s twinkling blue eyes or his full mane of wavy blonde hair that captured her attention. Or perhaps it was the crooked smile that often crept across his face.

But no matter what caused Laura’s love at first sight attraction, one thing was certain—she was going to make Almanzo Wilder see her as a woman one day.

Not many attractive young men wandered into Walnut Grove, so when Mrs. Oleson catches a glimpse of the tall, strong Almanzo, she immediately sees a suitor for her daughter Nellie. Having given Nellie a restaurant and hotel as a graduation gift, Harriet invites Almanzo to supper. When Caroline refuses to work on Sunday to prepare a meal for Nellie and her potential beau, Laura offers to help out. Seeking to wipe out the competition for Almanzo’s affections, Laura laces the cinnamon chicken with cayenne pepper, and Almanzo storms out after his first bite.



By this time, Almanzo and Laura call each other Manly and Beth. He gave Laura her nickname after she mistakenly called him Manly instead of Mannie, and as Laura is quick to point out, it's a grown up nickname-—much to Charles’s dismay. And in some ways, this might give Laura the wrong impression of their relationship. But when Nellie exacts her revenge, Laura discovers that Almanzo only sees her as a little girl, and is heartbroken.

Laura would have other rivals for Almanzo’s affections, namely snippy Christie Norton (Annabelle) and Sara in Silent Promises. All Laura can hope is that Almanzo waits until she gets old enough.

Mr. Slater and his son Bart come to Walnut Grove, and the schoolhouse is turned upside down (The Werewolf of Walnut Grove). When Miss Wilder is unable to maintain control at the school, the school board decides to replace her, and the Wilders plan to move on. Beth and Manly share a touching conversation where Almanzo admits that he will miss his young friend. Luckily, Laura convinces the children to stand up to Bart, and he agrees to behave so that Miss Wilder can return to school.

But as soon as Perley Day Wilder saunters into Walnut Grove, things begin to change between Beth and Manly (Wilder and Wilder). Charles sees Perley Day as the perfect suitor for Laura, and out of spite, Laura invites Perley Day to supper. It is Perley Day who points out to Almanzo that Laura isn’t a little girl, and perhaps the wheels start turning in Almanzo’s mind that his younger brother might be right.

The relationship between the Wilder brothers is tense. Perley Day is living a questionable life and has hurt the family. When Barnum is injured, Almanzo forces Perley Day to leave town and then takes Barnum to the Ingallses’ barn. Having spent all night tending to Barnum, when Charles tells Almanzo that it looks like the horse will be fine, an excited Almanzo embraces Laura and kisses her on the top of the head, saying, “We did it, Beth. We did it.”



And at this moment, Charles realizes Almanzo will be playing a larger role in his daughter’s life… even though Almanzo doesn’t know it yet. Charles has never been thrilled over Laura’s fascination with Almanzo because of the difference in their ages. Perhaps seeing Almanzo as a rival for Laura’s affection, in some odd way, after watching Almanzo forfeit an arm wrestling match to save his horse, Charles finally accepts him.

Right before Laura’s sixteenth birthday, she earns her teaching certificate and is given a job in Curry (Sweet Sixteen). Almanzo agrees to drive her back and forth to work because Charles is busy at the mill and on the farm. While at first telling Laura that her new clothing and hairstyle don’t make her look grown up at all, when Almanzo returns to pick Laura up at the end of her first week, he admits she looks older.

Almanzo is confused by this sudden change in Laura, or more accurately, by how he suddenly sees her. He nervously asks her to the church social, to which Laura says she’ll have to think about it, adding to Almanzo’s confusion.

After punching one of Laura’s students because he thought he was making advances toward her, Almanzo has a heart-to-heart talk with Mr. Ingalls and admits his growing feelings for Laura. At the social that night, Beth and Manly have another sweet conversation and share their first kiss. Their courtship has begun.

But it won’t be an easy one. Almanzo finally works up the courage to ask Laura to marry him, but he doesn’t want to wait until she turns eighteen (He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not). When Charles insists they wait, Almanzo leaves Walnut Grove and moves to Sleepy Eye. A heartbroken Laura keeps busy helping Mary and Adam set up the new blind school in Sleepy Eye, but they don’t have enough money to pay for the building.

Unbeknownst to Laura, Almanzo takes a second job to help cover the rent. When Almanzo comes down with pneumonia, Charles brings Laura to Sleepy Eye to care for him. As he recovers, Almanzo admits he’ll wait two years or twenty years to get married.

Almanzo’s stubborn, prideful side appears again in the episode, Laura Ingalls Wilder. When he loses his first crop and the land that he had bought to build a home for Laura, he won’t allow her to take a job in Radner to help get him back on his feet. Their engagement is called off twice before they finally reconcile and get married at the blind school in Sleepy Eye.



Eliza Jane has now moved to Minneapolis, so Almanzo and Laura settle in the white house that he used to share with his sister. Early married life is filled with disagreements, a visit from two impossible nephews, and a separation while Laura moves into the hotel to support her mother in helping to get women the right to vote. But it will be Almanzo’s illness and paralysis that tests their marriage like nothing before.



Now awaiting the birth of their first child, Laura has no idea how deeply into debt they are, and the Wilders may lose their home (Days of Sunshine, Days of Shadow). Distraught over how poorly things have turned out, Almanzo can’t seem to find the will to get better and prays he’ll die. Eliza Jane’s surprise visit does nothing but hamper Almanzo’s recovery. It takes a tornado wiping out the house and Laura giving up and retreating to bed, before Almanzo can find any hope of making a good life for Laura and his newborn daughter, Rose.



This will not be the last test of their marriage, however. The Ingalls family moves to Burr Oak, Iowa, and Almanzo’s older brother, Royal—now a widower—returns for a visit with his daughter, Jenny (Times Are Changing). When Royal dies of heart disease, the Wilders take Jenny in. Jenny tries to kill herself so that she can be with her parents, and later she nearly drowns while trying to retrieve her locket from the swimming hole (Marvin’s Garden). Laura, Rose, and Jenny are taken hostage by an unstable neighbor (Rage), and the railroad threatens to come right through their property (The Empire Builders). The Wilders welcome a son, but he soon dies, and Rose comes down with small pox (A Child with No Name).

The Wilders are thrilled when Charles and Caroline pay a visit to Walnut Grove, but that visit soon turns tragic when the railroad once again threatens to take over the town. Even though the Wilders have made it through many trials in the first few years of their marriage, this is truly The Last Farewell for them in Walnut Grove, as they are forced to blow up the house they inherited from a rich widow, say goodbye to all their friends, and watch as their beloved town is blown up, one building at a time, so that the railroad gets the message.



Almanzo’s story will always be closely interwoven with Laura's. While we get a glimpse of his early life in the episode A Christmas They Never Forgot, it is his relationship with Laura that propels this character forward. A young man who has always depended upon his older sister, when he must take a stand for his family and start over, he does so strongly, on both feet. While at times, stubborn and full of pride, for the most part Almanzo is an easygoing, happy man who loves being a farmer. And even when he is forced once again to start over after the railroad takes everything that is precious to him, he holds onto hope for the future, a future that includes his beloved Laura and their children.

You can find Laura's character profile here.

You can find Mary's character profile here.

Following the Railroad: How the Iron Horse Changed the American Landscape (Part 1) Indian Country

Engraving by Vaningen Snyder and borrowed from http://www.tcrr.com/



Here is another article that I had written for Prairie Fans a couple of years ago. With any luck, I will continue along with this series next month.


Following the Railroad: How the Iron Horse Changed the American Landscape (Part 1)
Indian Country
By Cheryl C. Malandrinos


In Donald Zochert’s biography titled Laura, he tells of a visit Charles Ingalls received from his sister Docia. Her husband, Hiriam was working for the railroad and Docia asked if Charles would be interested in moving to Dakota Territory to work with him. Even though his wife, Caroline was reluctant to leave Walnut Grove, she agreed to go.

The family settled into the Silver Lake Camp in 1879. According to William Anderson’s book The Story of the Ingalls, Charles performed clerical work for the railroad. During the winter, his family stayed in the Surveyor’s House and Charles traveled to Brookings in early 1880 to take a homestead, which would become the Ingalls farm. Charles had also been purchasing town lots in De Smet and in the fall of 1887 Charles, Caroline, Carrie and Grace settled permanently in De Smet, making it — as promised to his wife — their last move. Mary was away from home during this time, studying at the Iowa College for the Blind.

The railroad played a substantial role in the events that unfolded for the Ingalls family in the late 1800’s. Towns like Brookings and De Smet popped up across the country as the railroad worked feverishly to connect the East and West Coasts. Let’s take a look at how the railroad changed the American landscape.

There were many obstacles to building a transcontinental railroad — financing, selecting the most practical and economical routes, and the Civil War to name a few. But perhaps the greatest challenge to connecting the East and the West was Indian Country. This part of the United States was the only portion left unorganized after the Compromise of 1850. Indian Country ran from Texas to Canada and from the Missouri border to the Rockies. And it was obvious the U.S. Government intended to remove this obstacle to make way for the railroad.

In March of 1853, Congress authorized surveys to find which was the “most practical and economical route for a railroad from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean.” And in August of the same year, President Franklin Pierce sent the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, George Maypenny to Indian Country to see if the tribes would agree to a territorial government which would relinquish their title to some or all of the land. Interestingly enough, Maypenny did not visit with the tribes located in the areas that were favored for the transcontinental railroad routes. Instead he spoke to the Omaha who resided between the Missouri and the Platte; and then moved south to speak with the Oto and Missouri, the Sauk and Fox, the Kickapoo, and the Delawares who were north of the Kansas River. Most of these tribes had been pushed across the Mississippi a few years earlier and were promised by the White Father that these new lands would be theirs “as long as the grass shall grow or the waters run.”

Most of the tribes signed the treaties Maypenny offered them, but about half of the nations refused to acquiesce to the pressure from the U.S. Government and instead accepted reduced reserves. Maypenny sometimes accepted partial cessions when tribes were especially stubborn. He also agreed that the ceded lands would be “administered by the United States in trust for the ceding nations; that the acres should be sold at public sale to the highest bidder and that they should not be offered at the usual minimum price of $1.25 until after the lapse of three years.”

Senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois had a strong interest in the transcontinental railroad and he wanted the route to run through Chicago, which he saw as a great economic advantage for his State and home town. But this meant the railroad would have to run through Indian Country. To solve the problem, Douglas introduced a bill in January of 1854, calling for the organization of a huge new territory, known as Nebraska — west of Iowa and Missouri — which would open this portion of the country up to white settlement.

As Douglas suspected, the South opposed the bill because it made way for another free state. This new territory would be north of the Missouri Compromise line and therefore, closed to slavery. But Douglas added a provision to the bill stating that whether Nebraska was free or slave would be decided by the territorial legislature – a policy known as popular sovereignty. But Southern Democrats wanted more, so Douglas wrote an additional clause which withdrew the antislavery provision of the Missouri Compromise and also created two territories out of the area — Kansas and Nebraska. Few believed Nebraska would be open to slavery, but by having two territories instead of one, there was still hope that Kansas would become a slave state. The final draft of the Kansas-Nebraska Act was signed into law in May 1854 with the full support of the South and partial support from the Northern Democrats. The only portion of Indian Country left untouched was the section between Texas and the thirty-seventh parallel.

White settlement into the territories of Kansas and Nebraska was slow, and when the decade ended, only 107,206 people resided in Kansas and in Nebraska there were a scant 28,841. The Kansas-Nebraska Act did not put an end to the slavery question, nor did it promote emigration. But it was successful in removing the obstacle created by Indian Country. It seemed a railroad to the Pacific was inevitable.

This article copyright © 2006 Cheryl C. Malandrinos and may not be reproduced in any form without the express written consent of its author. All rights reserved.

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Resources used for this article:

* Donald Zochert, Laura (New York: Avon Books, Inc., 1976), pp. 130 – 131.

* William Anderson, The Story of the Ingalls (The Laura Ingalls Wilder Family Series) (Anderson Publications, 1971), pp. 10 – 11, 14 – 15.

* Frederic L. Paxson, History of the American Frontier (Georgia: Norman S. Berg, Publisher, 1924), p. 433.

* Marieke van Ophem, “The Iron Horse: the impact of the railroads on 19th century American society” March 2003. 17 April 2006. http://www.let.rug.nl/usa/E/ironhorse/ironhorsexx.htm

* Frederic L. Paxson, History of the American Frontier (Georgia: Norman S. Berg, Publisher, 1924), p. 432.

* Marieke van Ophem, “The Iron Horse: the impact of the railroads on 19th century American society” March 2003. 17 April 2006. http://www.let.rug.nl/usa/E/ironhorse/ironhorsexx.htm

* Frederic L. Paxson, History of the American Frontier (Georgia: Norman S. Berg, Publisher, 1924), p. 432.

* Marieke van Ophem, “The Iron Horse: the impact of the railroads on 19th century American society” March 2003. 17 April 2006. http://www.let.rug.nl/usa/E/ironhorse/ironhorsexx.htm

* Marieke van Ophem, “The Iron Horse: the impact of the railroads on 19th century American society” March 2003. 17 April 2006. http://www.let.rug.nl/usa/E/ironhorse/ironhorsexx.htm

* Marieke van Ophem, “The Iron Horse: the impact of the railroads on 19th century American society” March 2003. 17 April 2006. http://www.let.rug.nl/usa/E/ironhorse/ironhorsexx.htm

* Frederic L. Paxson, History of the American Frontier (Georgia: Norman S. Berg, Publisher, 1924), p. 435.

* Frederic L. Paxson, History of the American Frontier (Georgia: Norman S. Berg, Publisher, 1924), p. 436.

Featured Book of the Month

I'm posting August's book of the month early because we're heading off to Cape Cod on August 8th. Donald Zochert's, Laura: The Life of Laura Ingalls Wilder is the first biography I ever read about Laura and her family.

While dry from a writing perspective, it remains, to me, one of the best non-fiction accounts of Wilder's life from The Big Woods of Wisconsin to the years she shares with Almanzo and culminating with her death.

What I truly enjoy about Zochert's Laura is that it opens with a mention of Laura and The Big Woods, but then moves back in time to provide a history of the Ingalls and Quiner families. Zochert also gives the reader a brief glimpse into Almanzo's childhood; but since he is a man and Laura a young woman by the time Almanzo is introduced, not much of Almanzo's life before living in De Smet, SD is written about.

Laura Ingalls Wilder enthusiasts will recognize many of the names mentioned in this book: Reverend Edwin Alden, LaFayette Bedal, Mr. and Mrs. Robert Boast, Ida Brown, Mr. Edwards, Edward (Cap) Garland, Mr. Hanson, Genevieve Masters, Nellie Owens, and many Ingalls and Quiner relatives. You read of the "years of sunshine and shadow" as Laura and Almanzo almost die of diphtheria and then Almanzo suffers a stroke--which forever takes away his strength; the loss of their baby boy in 1889, who lives only twelve days and is buried without a name; and the kitchen fire that burns their house to the ground.

But there will be happy times at Rocky Ridge Farm: Laura writing articles for the Missouri Ruralist, the prosperity of the farm, the success of their daughter Rose, and the popularity of the Little House books--which have forever emblazoned the names of Laura Ingalls Wilder and her family on many hearts. Readers will also find several appendices with important dates, information on all the Little Houses, and a discussion on the truth of the Little House books.

To end this feature of Donald Zochert's Laura, I will share Zochert's final words from this biography of a woman who changed the face of children's literature forever, and who continues to gain new fans all over the world every day:

"Laura closed her eyes. Now is now. She wished they could go on and on, forever."