There are many Little House on the Prairie characters, appearing in various forms of media in the Little House on the Prairie media franchise.
Name | Seasons | No. of episodes | Portrayer | Character summary |
---|---|---|---|---|
Charles Ingalls | 1–9 | 161 | Michael Landon | Farmer; husband, father and grandfather |
Caroline Ingalls | 1–8 | 172 | Karen Grassle | Wife, mother, teacher and grandmother |
Laura Ingalls Wilder | 1–9 | 190 | Melissa Gilbert | Daughter; became teacher, later Almanzo's wife and Rose's mother; nicknamed "Half-Pint" by Charles and "Beth" by Almanzo |
Mary Ingalls | 1–8 | 133 | Melissa Sue Anderson | Daughter, eldest child; later Adam's wife and Adam Jr.'s mother |
Carrie Ingalls | 1–8 | 164 | Lindsay and Sidney Greenbush | Daughter, youngest child at the beginning of the series |
Charles Ingalls Jr. | 1 | 2 | Unknown | Son, died as an infant |
Grace Ingalls | 5–8 | 60 | Wendi and Brenda Turnbaugh | Daughter, youngest child |
Albert (Quinn) Ingalls | 5–9 | 89 | Matthew Labyorteaux | Son, adopted after spending many years in orphanages and on the streets |
Jack | The dog of the family | |||
James (Cooper) Ingalls | 7–8 | 21 | Jason Bateman | Son, adopted after birth parents were killed in a wagon accident |
Cassandra (Cooper) Ingalls | 7–8 | 21 | Missy Francis | Daughter, adopted after birth parents were killed in a wagon accident |
Rose Wilder | 8–9 | 17 | Jennifer and Michele Steffin | Granddaughter, daughter of Laura and Almanzo |
Bandit | The dog of the family |
Name | Seasons | No. of episodes | Portrayer | Character summary |
---|---|---|---|---|
Almanzo Wilder | 6–9 | 65 | Dean Butler | Farmer; Laura's husband (season 7); Rose's father; whos friends called him Manly. |
Jenny Wilder | 9 | 18 | Shannen Doherty | Almanzo's niece, whom he gets custody of after his brother/her father Royal dies |
Eliza Jane Wilder | 6–8 | 14 | Lucy Lee Flippin | Teacher; Almanzo's older sister |
Perley Day Wilder | 6 | 1 | Charles Bloom | Almanzo and Eliza Jane’s youngest brother; gambler |
Adam Kendall | 4–8 | 35 | Linwood Boomer | Teacher/Lawyer; Mary's husband (season 5) |
Name | Seasons | No. of episodes | Portrayer | Character summary |
---|---|---|---|---|
Nels Oleson | 1–9 | 147 | Richard Bull | Mercantile proprietor; husband and father |
Harriet Oleson | 1–9 | 153 | Katherine MacGregor | Mercantile proprietor; wife and mother |
Nellie Oleson | 1–7, 9 | 104 | Alison Arngrim | Oldest child of Nels and Harriet |
Willie Oleson | 1–9 | 140 | Jonathan Gilbert | Son of Nels and Harriet |
Nancy Oleson | 8–9 | 33 | Allison Balson | Daughter of Nels and Harriet, adopted from orphanage |
Percival Dalton/Isaac Cohen | 6–7 | 11 | Steve Tracy | Nellie’s husband |
Rachel Brown Oleson | 9 | 2 | Sherri Stoner | Willie’s wife |
Dr. Hiram Baker | 1–9 | 113 | Kevin Hagen | Town physician |
Reverend Robert Alden | 1–9 | 76 | Dabbs Greer | Church minister |
Melinda Foster | 1–9 | 61 | Ruth Foster | Post office manager |
Isaiah Edwards | 1–3, 6, 8–9 | 52 | Victor French | Charles’s best friend |
Grace Snider Edwards | 1–3, 6, 8 | 23 | Bonnie Bartlett / Corinne Camacho | Wife of Isaiah Edwards |
John Sanderson Edwards | 2–4 | 8 | Radames Pera | Oldest child of Isaiah & Grace Edwards, adopted after first mother died |
Alicia Sanderson Edwards | 2–3, 6, 8 | 19 | Kyle Richards | Youngest child of Isaiah & Grace Edwards, adopted after first mother died |
Carl Sanderson Edwards | 2–3, 8 | 19 | Brian Part / David R. Kaufman | Middle child of Isaiah & Grace Edwards, adopted after first mother died |
Matthew Rogers | 9 | 5 | Jonathan Hall Kovacs | Young boy that is taken care of by Isaiah Edwards (season 9) |
Jonathan Garvey | 4–7 | 51 | Merlin Olsen | Farmer; husband and father |
Alice Garvey | 4–6 | 33 | Hersha Parady | Wife and mother; teacher; dies in fire with Adam Kendall Jr. |
Andy Garvey | 4–7 | 43 | Patrick Labyorteaux | Son of Jonathan and Alice |
Eva Beadle Simms | 1–4 | 45 | Charlotte Stewart | School teacher |
Adam Simms | 4 | 2 | Joshua Bryant | Miss Beadle's husband |
Lars Hanson | 1–5 | 41 | Karl Swenson | Lumber mill owner; a founder of Walnut Grove |
Hester-Sue Terhune | 5–9 | 40 | Ketty Lester | Head of the school for the blind |
John Carter | 9 | 19 | Stan Ivar | Blacksmith; husband and father |
Sarah Carter | 9 | 15 | Pamela Roylance | Starts a newspaper; wife and mother |
Jeb Carter | 9 | 18 | Lindsay Kennedy | Older son of John and Sarah |
Jason Carter | 9 | 18 | David Friedman | Younger son of John and Sarah |
Susan Goodspeed | 4–7 | 16 | Michelle Downey | Student at the school for the blind |
Etta Plum | 9 | 15 | Leslie Landon | School teacher |
Christy Kennedy | 1–2 | 10 | Tracie Savage | Schoolgirl |
Sandy Kennedy | 1 | 4 | Robert Hoffman | Schoolboy; Christy's brother |
Hans Dorfler | 1–4, 6 | 9 | James Jeter | Resident of Walnut Grove; a stable-owner |
Bill Anderson | 6–9 | 6 | Sam Edwards | Banker of Walnut Grove |
Joe Kagan | 4–5, 7 | 5 | Moses Gunn | Aging boxer who retires to farm life in Walnut Grove |
Judd Larrabee | 4–5 | 5 | Don "Red" Barry | Resident of Walnut Grove |
Mrs. Amanda "May" Whipple | 1–4 | 5 | Queenie Smith | Resident of Walnut Grove; local seamstress |
Mr. Kennedy | 1 | 4 | Wayne Heffley | Resident of Walnut Grove; father of Christy and Sandy |
Mrs. Kennedy | 1–2 | 3 | Eileen Ryan (season 1), Janice Carroll (season 2) | Resident of Walnut Grove; mother of Christy and Sandy |
Ebenezer Sprague | 2–3 | 4 | Ted Gehring | Banker of Walnut Grove |
Houston Lamb | 6–7 | 4 | Dub Taylor | Works and lives at the school for the blind in Sleepy Eye |
Henry Riley | 4–9 | 15 | Dan McBride | recurring role - customer in Nellie's Restaurant arguing |
Kezia Horn | 4–5 | 3 | Hermione Baddeley | Resident of Walnut Grove and friend of Laura and Albert |
Charles Ingalls | Caroline Quiner | James Wilder | Angeline Day | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Mary Ingalls | Carrie Ingalls | Charles Frederic Ingalls | Grace Ingalls | Laura Wilder | Royal Wilder | Eliza Jane Wilder | Alice Wilder | Perley Wilder | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Laura Ingalls | Almanzo Wilder | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Rose Wilder | Unnamed son | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Jonathan Ingalls (1750–1834) & Martha Jane Locke (1753–1785) | Jonathan Delano (1735–1811) & Anne Ladd (1734–1816) | Ezekiel Colby (1739–1791) & Sally Fowler (1734–1834) | Elijah Blood (1748–1826) & Eunice Sleeman (1758–1811) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Samuel Ingalls (1771–1841) | Margaret Delano (1773–1837) | Nathan Colby (1778–1857) | Eunice Blood (1782–1862) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Lansford Ingalls (1812–1896) | Laura Colby (1810–1883) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Peter Ingalls (1833–1900) | Aaron Ingalls (1835–1835) | Charles Ingalls (1836–1902) | Lydia Ingalls (1838–1913) | Polly Ingalls (1840–1886) | Lansford Ingalls (1842–1928) | Laura Ingalls (1845–1918) | Hiram Ingalls (1848–1923) | George Ingalls (1851–1901) | Ruby Ingalls (1855–1881) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Based on the data from : The Genealogy of Almanzo and Laura Ingalls Wilder
NOTE: A second daughter of Ruby Ingalls Card, Lettie Letishia Card Anderson, is listed as being born in 1888, seven years after Ruby's death. How this is possible is unknown.
William Quiner (1773–1831) | Margaret Doer (1774–1839) | Lewis Tucker (1779–1870) | Martha Gráinne Morse (1772–1862) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Henry Quiner (1809–1844) | Charlotte Tucker (1809–1884) | Frederic M. Holbrook (1819-1874) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Martha Quiner (1832–1836) | Joseph Quiner (1834–1862) | Henry Quiner (1835–1880) | Martha Quiner (1837–1927) | Caroline Quiner (1839–1924) | Eliza Quiner (1842–1931) | Thomas Quiner (1844–1903) | Charlotte Holbrook (1854–1939) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
(Laura's maternal great-great-grandparents)
Allan Alexander Morse and Margaret Drummond *These are fictional names. Real names unknown.
(Laura's maternal great-grandparents)
Lewis Tucker(1779–1870) and Martha Gráinne Morse(1772–1862)
William Quiner(1773–1831) and Margaret Doer(1774–1839)
(Laura's maternal grandparents)
Charlotte Tucker and Henry Quiner
Henry Quiner died in October 1844 in the sinking of a trading ship on the Great Lakes. Charlotte Tucker Quiner remarried, to Frederic Holbrook, and they had one child
Lewis Tucker | Martha Morse (1782–1862) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Betsy Tucker (1800–?) | Lewis Tucker (1802–?) | Linus Tucker (1802–?) | Lydia Tucker (1805–?) | Thomas Tucker (1807–?) | Charlotte Tucker (1809–1884) | Caroline Tucker (1811–?) | Mary Tucker (1813–?) | Nancy Tucker (1816–?) | George Tucker(1820–1821) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Charlotte Wallis Tucker was born on May 25, 1809, in Roxbury, Massachusetts (a suburb of Boston). She died September 20, 1884, in Rome, Wisconsin. Her mostly fictionalised story was described in the four-book series The Charlotte Years by Melissa Wiley. Charlotte was maternal grandmother to Laura Ingalls Wilder.
As a young woman, Charlotte married Henry Newton Quiner from Connecticut. She was the first woman in her family to travel west, living in Ohio and Indiana before settling in the frontier town of Brookfield, Wisconsin.
Allan Alexander Morse | Margaret Drummond | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Grisell "Grisie" Morse (b. 1774) | Alisdair Morse (b.1776) | Robert "Robbie" Morse (b.1778) | Duncan Morse (b.1780) | Martha Morse (1782–1862) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Martha Morse was born on January 2, 1782, in Scotland, where her father was a wealthy landowners in the Scottish Highlands. Her mostly fictionalised story was told in the four-book series The Martha Years , by Melissa Wiley. Martha was Charlotte Tucker's mother and great-grandmother to Laura Ingalls Wilder.
Martha married Lewis Tucker, a blacksmith's son. Lewis and Martha travelled to the United States and began their new life near Boston, Massachusetts, becoming the first of Laura's ancestors to immigrate to America.
Daniel Wilder (1764–1851) | Mary Polly Gould (1765–1828) | Thomas Payne | Sarah Stewart Mason | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Abel Wilder (1784–1849) | Hannah Payne (1790–1842) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Royal Gould Wilder (1809–1815) | Thomas Payne Wilder (1811–?) | James Mason Wilder(1813-1899) | Hannah Payne Wilder (1814–1891) | Royal Gould Wilder (1816–1887) | Phoebe Wilder (1821–1890) | Polly Maria Wilder (1824–1851) | William Wilder (1828–1909) | Sarah Charlotte Wilder (1820–1892) | Joshua Prince Wilder (1832–1832) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Justin Day, I | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Justin Day, II (1790–1861) | Diadema Bateman (1794–1868) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Laura Day (1819–?) | Delia Day (1824–?) | Angelina Albina Day(1819-1905) | Celinda A.Day (1826–?) | Andrew Day (1828–1894) | John Wesley Day (1829–1907) | George W.Day (1821–1872) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
De Smet is a city in and the county seat of Kingsbury County, South Dakota, United States. The population was 1,056 at the 2020 census.
The Little House on the Prairie books comprise a series of American children's novels written by Laura Ingalls Wilder. The stories are based on her childhood and adolescence in the American Midwest between 1870 and 1894. Eight of the novels were completed by Wilder, and published by Harper & Brothers in the 1930s and 1940s, during her lifetime. The name "Little House" appears in the first and third novels in the series, while the third is identically titled Little House on the Prairie. The second novel, meanwhile, was about her husband's childhood.
Laura Elizabeth Ingalls Wilder was an American writer. The Little House on the Prairie series of children's books, published between 1932 and 1943, were based on her childhood in a settler and pioneer family.
Little House on the Prairie is an American Western historical drama television series about the Ingalls family, who live on a farm on Plum Creek near Walnut Grove, Minnesota, in the 1870s–90s. Charles, Caroline, Laura, Mary, and Carrie Ingalls are respectively portrayed by Michael Landon, Karen Grassle, Melissa Gilbert, Melissa Sue Anderson, and twins Lindsay and Sydney Greenbush. The show is an adaptation of Laura Ingalls Wilder's best-selling series of Little House books.
Almanzo James Wilder was the husband of Laura Ingalls Wilder and the father of Rose Wilder Lane, both noted authors.
Caroline Lake Ingalls (; née Quiner (later Holbrook); December 12, 1839 – April 20, 1924) was an American schoolteacher who was the mother of Laura Ingalls Wilder, author of the Little House books.
Charles Phillip Ingalls was an American pioneer, farmer, government official, musician, and carpenter who was the father of Laura Ingalls Wilder, known for her Little House series of books. He is depicted as the character "Pa" in the books and the television series.
Nellie Oleson is a fictional character in the Little House series of autobiographical children's novels written by Laura Ingalls Wilder. She was portrayed by Alison Arngrim in the NBC television show Little House on the Prairie, where her role is much expanded. Three different girls from Laura Ingalls Wilder's childhood — Nellie Owens, Genevieve Masters and Stella Gilbert — were the basis for the fictional Nellie Oleson.
By the Shores of Silver Lake is an autobiographical children's novel written by Laura Ingalls Wilder and published in 1939, the fifth of nine books in her Little House series. It spans just over one year, beginning when she is 12 years old and her family moves from Plum Creek, Minnesota to what will become De Smet, South Dakota.
Little Town on the Prairie is an autobiographical children's novel written by Laura Ingalls Wilder and published in 1941, the seventh of nine books in her Little House series. It is set in De Smet, South Dakota. It opens in the spring after the Long Winter and ends as Laura becomes a school teacher so she can help her sister, Mary, stay at a school for the blind in Vinton, Iowa. It tells the story of 15-year-old Laura's first paid job outside of home and her last term of schooling. At the end of the novel, she receives a teacher's certificate and is employed to teach at the Brewster settlement, 12 miles (19 km) away.
These Happy Golden Years is an autobiographical children's novel written by Laura Ingalls Wilder and published in 1943, the eighth of nine books in her Little House series – although it originally ended it. It is based on her later adolescence near De Smet, South Dakota, featuring her short time as a teacher, beginning at age 15, and her courtship with Almanzo Wilder. It spans the time period from 1882 to 1885, when they marry.
The Taft family is an American political family of English and Irish descent, with origins in Massachusetts. Its members have served in the states of Massachusetts, Ohio, Rhode Island, Utah, and Vermont, and the United States federal government, in various positions such as representative (two), governor of Ohio, governor of Rhode Island, senator (three), secretary of agriculture, attorney general, secretary of war (two), acting secretary of defense, president, and chief justice.
Mr. Edwards is a character that appeared in the Little House series of autobiographical children's novels written by Laura Ingalls Wilder. His character was later adapted for the NBC television show, Little House on the Prairie and given the name "Isaiah Edwards."
Ingalls House is a historic house museum at 210 3rd Street Southwest in De Smet, South Dakota. The 3rd street house was moved into on Christmas Eve 1887. Everyone but Laura lived there; she married Almanzo in 1885 and therefore would have not been living with her parents anymore. Laura Ingalls Wilder.
Notable American Women, 1607–1950: A Biographical Dictionary is a three-volume biographical dictionary published in 1971. Its origins lay in 1957 when Radcliffe College librarians, archivists, and professors began researching the need for a version of the Dictionary of American Biography dedicated solely to women.
"I'll Be Waving as You Drive Away" is episode 21 and 22 of the fourth season of Little House on the Prairie. It aired in two parts on NBC, part 1 on March 6, 1978, part 2 on March 13, 1978.