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  • Author Kelly Ferguson, dressed as Laura Ingalls Wilder, listens to one of the presentations during Laurapalooza Thursday afternoon at Minnesota State University. Pat Christman

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  • Laura Ingalls Wilder biographer John Miller speaks during Laurapalooza Thursday. Pat Christman

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July 15, 2010

They’re wild for Ingalls Wilder at LauraPalooza

Some compare themselves to Trekkies

By Nell Musolf Special to The Free Press

MANKATO — If you hold a Laura Ingalls Wilder conference, they will come.

Fans of Laura Ingalls Wilder arrived in Mankato from all over the world this week to attend “LauraPalooza: Legacies 2010” at Minnesota State University.

Carolyn Pappin decided to make the long trek from Australia to Minnesota after reading about LauraPalooza on the website www.beyondlittlehouse.com.

“The event was so professionally put together that I knew it would be worth the expense and time,” Pappin says.

In addition to attending the three-day LauraPalooza, Pappin also will be traveling to Iowa and to DeSmet, S.D., to see more Laura Ingalls Wilder attractions.

Another long-distance traveler is Senne Jakobson, a historian from Denmark. She discovered the event while surfing the Internet. “I first started reading the Laura Ingalls Wilder books when I was 8 and my family moved to Greenland. It was dark and cold there, and I think I read every single book in the library that year.”

Writer Sue Poremba of Harrisburg, Penn., views Wilder’s books as “comfort food books.” The Little House books are what she turns to when she’s feeling depressed or to chase away the bad taste of another book. “I recently read a book that was just awful. To purge it, I went through several Little House books until I felt better.”

Susan Hynes, a local re-enactor for the Betsy-Tacy Society, is enjoying LauraPalooza in the form of Mrs. Ray, Betsy’s mother. “Mrs. Ray and Laura were about the same age,” Hynes says. “I think Laura and Betsy complement each other so well.”

The people attending the conference are mainly female, but there are a few males, too. James Welser accompanied his wife, Laura, from Michigan to the convention. When asked if he’s always been a fan of the Little House books, he admits he’s still learning about them but that he’s enjoying the experience of being with other fans.

A presentation that is piquing several attendees’ interest is Saturday’s 10 a.m. panel discussion, “Loving Laura in a Lindsay Lohan World.” “I’m really looking forward to that one,” says Shae Gleason of Dayton, Ohio.

More than one conference goer described LauraPalooza as a sort of prairie version of Star Trek’s Trekkies. Like Trekkies, the prairie prowlers are proud of their allegiance. Eleanor Reed, a high school teacher who drove to Mankato from Arlington, Va., says, “We’re similar to science fiction fans in our dedication to interesting writing and interesting figures.”

Dean Butler, who portrayed Laura Ingalls Wilder’s husband, Almanzo, on the 1970s television series, “Little House on the Prairie,” will be presenting a documentary at 7 p.m. today about Laura Ingalls Wilder’s life.

 The documentary, which went into production last September and was completed in May, has what Butler terms a “dual track in time” that follows Wilder’s life from beginning to end and then loops back to the beginning one more time. Butler is looking for a national distributor for the documentary but is able to show it at conventions such as LauraPalooza. Butler, who hasn’t been to southern Minnesota before, commented that he found the area far hotter and much more humid than he’d anticipated.

Muggy weather aside, Amy Mattson Lauters, LauraPalooza’s founder, says that the conference is proceeding smoothly. “So far, so good.”

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