The Parlor

The parlor, a sitting room for hotel guests, is directly across the hall from the bar-room. The Ingalls family is seated in the parlor! Weddings were sometimes held in the parlor, and dances were held in the dining room below. Pa played his fiddle here, which he kept in the hotel office.

Displayed in the parlor is information about the Ingalls family, as the girls entered adulthood. Mary became blind 2 years after leaving Burr Oak. She entered the College for the Blind in Vinton, Iowa, in 1881. After graduating in 1889, she lived with her parents in DeSmet. After they passed, Grace and her husband cared for Mary in Ma and Pa’s house. She also stayed with Carrie in Keystone, South Dakota. She was never married and never taught school.
Laura taught in three different schools until the age of 18, then married Almanzo Wilder. They had one daughter, Rose, who was the only grandchild of Charles and Caroline. Laura’s second child, a boy, died 12 days after birth.Carrie went into the newspaper business, managing several news-paper offices, married and raised two step-children. Grace taught school until she married. She and her husband farmed near Manchester, South Dakota.

Laura wrote in Pioneer Girl, ‘I had no playtime because Mr. Bisby took a notion to teach me to sing'

Laura wrote in Pioneer Girl, ‘I had no playtime because Mr. Bisby took a notion to teach me to sing. Mr. Bisby was one of the rich men in Burr Oak, and lived in the parlor bedroom. He was our best paying, steady boarder, and he must be kept pleased, so every day I had to practice singing the scales up and down and mixed. I did not care for it, but patiently I sang for hours, do re me fa sol la tee do.’

Next: The Northwest Bedroom