Page "Laura Ingalls Wilder" Paragraph 4

On December 10, 1882, two months before her 16th birthday, Laura accepted her first teaching position, teaching three terms in one-room schools, when not attending school herself in DeSmet.

In the book Little Town on the Prairie, Laura states that she received her first teaching certificate on December 24, 1882, but this was an enhancement for dramatic effect.

Laura's original " Third Grade " teaching certificate can be seen on page 25 of William Anderson's book Laura's Album ( Harper Collins, 1998 ).

She later admitted that she did not particularly enjoy teaching, but felt the responsibility from a young age to help her family financially, and wage earning opportunities for females were limited.

Between 1883 and 1885, she taught three terms of school, worked for the local dressmaker and attended high school, although she did not graduate.

Her teaching career and her own studies ended when she married Almanzo Wilder, whom she called Manly, on August 25, 1885, when she was eighteen and he was twenty-eight.

Almanzo Wilder had achieved a degree of prosperity on his homestead claim, owing to favorable weather in the early 1880s, and the couple's prospects seemed bright.

She joined Almanzo in a new home on his claim north of De Smet and agreed to help him make the claim succeed.

On December 5, 1886, she gave birth to Rose Wilder ( 1886 – 1968 ) and later, an unnamed son, who died shortly after his birth in 1889.