Some years ago, while on a road trip in the USA, we visited the town of Walnut Grove, the home of Laura Ingalls Wilder, of Little House on the Prairie fame.

I grew up on LHOTP, alongside Laura and Mary, even though they started dating long before boys were on my horizon.

I loved (and still love) the simplicity of it all, the wholesomeness.

On another trip, I went to pay my respects to Pa (Michael Landon) in Hillside Memorial Park in Culver City, CA.

Wondering recently how I was going to get a bottle of 100% Balaton wine (so says the label) to a friend in the other Balaton – Balaton, MN – Laura was once more on my mind.

Perhaps I was watching out for her, on heightened alert, when I came across a post on Eileen Ní Shuilleabháin’s Facebook page quoting from Writings to Young Women from Laura Ingalls Wilder: On Wisdom and Virtues.

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 [sic] 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.

LIW published her first novel at 65. There’s hope for me yet.

I’m grateful for the prompts to reacquaint myself with this remarkable woman. I’m also grateful for her sobering reminder:

Persons appear to us according to the light we throw upon them from our own minds.

That’s one that will keep me thinking for a while yet.