Access Old Home Town Illustrated By Rose Wilder Lane Audio Books

was the best of the three novels I have read by Rose, Free Land and Young Pioneers were ok, Her writing style is very different from that of the Little House books no matter how involved Rose may have been.
This here's the Little House book that wasn't, Rose Wilder Lane is the daughter of Laura Ingalls Wilder and inshe wrote this thinly veiled account of her home town of Mansfield, Missouri.
It's not tied in with the Little House series, but knowing readers will realize that "Mother" is no one less than Laura, all grown up.
The book is an interesting peek at life in a small town around the turn of theth Century.
Ms. Wilder doesn't make it sound too invitingthe social conventions were stifling back then, It reads like an alien culture to thisth Century boy, But the hopes and dreams of the characters are quite familiar, It's quite an enjoyable read, Funny how small town life hasn't changed much in ayears! Endearing portrait of small town American life preWWI.
Lane really, really didn't like the small town America in which she was raised, and in particular she didn't like the lifestyle it forced upon the women living it.


The first chapter is a beautifully written indictment of the nameless Midwestern town in which the story is set.
Parochial, insular, stuffy, middlebrow, Wilder's old home town is obsessed with what is proper and especially what isn't.


The rest of the chapters are stories told by a young girl named Ernestine about other women who live there, and most of them are pretty easily identifiable as wish fulfillment on the part of the author.
The old maid escaping seduction by town ne'erdowell by her own pluck and the timely appearance of a new suitor.
The hired girl forced by gossip to marry the husband when the wife dies, which ends about as well as you might expect.
A wife who leaves her husband and goes on to become a couturier, The selfish old woman who lies about her daughter being fast to her daughter's suitor so he'll jilt her and she'll have someone at home to take care of her.
Ernestine's "fast friend" Elsie falls for a traveling man with disastrous results, The town beauty elopes with a hayseed, and a mother sells her beautiful daughter to the highest bidder, with homicidal results.


In the last chapter, Ernestine has finally had enough and so have we and against the wishes of her parents leaves home for school in NYC.
You don't so much as cheer as think, "What took you so long"

Lane writes

.
. . there were two clear ways to flaunt one's loss of modesty and virtue one was to wear red, the other was to be seen needlessly gadding around uptown.


Makes me want to put on my reddest outfit and prance right up town, I'm certain that was exactly how she meant me to feel,

This was a reread and I have to say it was just as enjoyable the second time around.
I have learned a little about Rose Wilder Lane and I can say that I wasn't surprised by her acerbic style of writing.
She is every bit as good a writer as her mother, but my, what a different attitude toward small town life!!! I'm learning now in Prairie Fires that Old Home Town is only thinly disguised Mansfield, Mo amp

the townsfolk there didn't think too highly of it.
I would have liked it more if I could read the chapters / short stories in one sitting, but they bord me too much to slog through.
Really enjoyed this one, as a good read in and of itself, as well as a good look into Rose's life and impressions.


This is chicklit and a period piece, really a gift from another time that is still relatable.
It's fascinating to see what was and was not considered proper behavior for a young lady around the turn of the century in rural middle America.


But as we learn these cultural nuances, we also observe the many ways people manipulate their social situations in the struggle to get what they want out of life.
In this way, human nature doesn't change much over time and through the generations, We outwardly adapt to conform, but search for ways to maximize our options,

Lots of fun, nothing much like the Little House books but a must read for their fans anyway to see our Wilder ladies' thinly veiled lives from another angle.
So grateful the publisher dusted off this long outofprint treasure, Have read and reread at least ten times and not done yet,

I thoroughly enjoyed this book a collection of short stories about the residents of a small town at the turn of the century.
Her book focuses mainly on women, specifically their lack of rights, restrictions placed on women, and their place in society if they did not marry.
Her bias against small towns and marriage shows throughout the book, However, her attention to detail gives a picturesque view of small town living, Characters are well developed including the men, It is worth reading. It was very well written, which is what I have come to expect from this author, It definitely gave me a feeling for how people lived in that era, I wish I could give it,stars, though. Perhaps because of the format, I felt there was a certain sameness to each of the stories, I think there is a possibility that Let The Hurricane Roar was her masterpiece, Rose's dislike of growing up in a small town with gossiping women pervades this book, The final story looks like a reflection of herself as a " bachelor girl" who loves to travel and finds herself in Albania.

This was pretty good! This book is actually made up of a collection of short stories, Each story is a lone chapter in the book, Sometimes it is a bit confusing, hard to keep straight who is who and what time period it is as the chapters may overlap each other rather than following one another.


The stories are told in firstperson by our main character, Ernestine, Shes growing up in the lates and earlys in small town Missouri, Her life is pretty much the transition between “the old ways” and the beginnings of American feminism, Shes a young girl fighting to get out of the town, trying to avoid that sameoldsameold life all the other women desire.
Its very interesting, though, to read about the customs and the typical gossip that existed at this time, preWWI.
The time of my greatgreat and greatgreatgreatgrandparents,

I think my favorite chapters of the book were all, pretty much, but the first and the last, haha.
The first almost lost me and I kept thinking, oh man, Im not going to be able to finish this book, but once I got past that, it was great.
The end of the last seemed a little long, too, but maybe I was just anxious to finish it and return my borrowed book.


But overall, its very entertaining and like a light into the Midwest American past, Very enjoyable!

spoiler

There is one thing, though, that I totally dont understand, In a nutshell, Mr. Gifford comes down with Typhoid fever and it looks pretty bleak for him but after something like a week, his fever breaks and he starts to get better.
But then, his young wife Lois is feeding him ears of corn, Ernestine exclaims that she knows better, that the doctor said that would kill him, but Lois says she was told nothing of the kind, that Mr.
Gifford was hungry and asked for sweet corn, Two and a half days later, he does die, I dont get this! Im reading about Typhoid fever right now and all I can figure is is it because of the intestinal hemorrhage That would be my guess but Im no doctor, so if anyone else has an idea, let me know!.