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Nellie Oleson | |
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Little House on the Prairie character | |
First appearance | On the Banks of Plum Creek |
Last appearance | These Happy Golden Years |
Created by | Laura Ingalls Wilder |
Portrayed by | Alison Arngrim |
In-universe information | |
Family | Harriet and Nels Oleson (parents) Willie Oleson (brother) Nancy Oleson (adopted sister) |
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 (1974 to 1983), where her role is much expanded.[ citation needed ] Three different girls from Laura Ingalls Wilder's childhood — Nellie Owens, Genevieve Masters and Stella Gilbert — were the basis for the fictional Nellie Oleson. [1]
Nellie Winfield (Owens) Kirry | |
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Born | Walnut Grove, Minnesota, U.S. | August 2, 1869
Died | November 2, 1949 80) Forest Grove, Oregon, U.S. | (aged
Owens was born on August 2, 1869, [2] two years after Laura Ingalls. Nellie's parents, Margaret (1836–1908) Owens and William (1836–1920) did, as Ingalls describes, run the local mercantile in Walnut Grove, Minnesota. [3]
Later in her life, around 1883, the Owens family moved to California; probably via the Oregon Trail. In 1891 they went to Tillamook, Oregon, where Nellie taught school and in 1893 married [3] Henry Francis Kirry (1869–1951). They moved to Bay City, Oregon, and had three children; Zola (1894–1986), Lloyd (1896–1961) and Leslie (1900–1931). Soon, the Kirrys changed their home again by moving to Rainier, Oregon, in 1899. [3] Her brother Willie went blind from a firecracker explosion, attended a school for the blind, married, and also had three children.
There seems to be no indication that Laura ever saw Nellie Owens again after Laura's family left Walnut Grove in 1879. Nellie died on November 2, 1949, in Oregon and is buried in Forest View Cemetery in Forest Grove, Oregon. [2] [3]
Genevieve Maude (Masters) Renwick | |
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Born | Hornby, New York, U.S. | November 12, 1867
Died | November 7, 1909 41) Chicago, Illinois, U.S. | (aged
The second girl, Genevieve Masters, was born November 12, 1867, in Hornby, Steuben County, New York [2] and was the spoiled daughter of Laura's former teacher. Genevieve wore beautifully tailored clothes and had striking blonde curly hair, just as "Nellie Oleson" had. Genevieve boasted continually about how much more proper and "civilized" things were in the "East". With her superior attitude, Genevieve was far nastier than Nellie Owens had been, and Laura and Genevieve became keen rivals, both academically and socially.
Gennie's family moved to De Smet not long after the Ingalls family, but the Owens family did not move. Therefore, the "Nellie" of Little Town on the Prairie is most likely Genevieve Masters. In her "Letter to Children" written late in her life (a sort of form letter sent to the hundreds of children who wrote her monthly), Laura stated: "Nellie Oleson . . . moved back East, and did not live many years."[ citation needed ] Laura was referring to Genevieve Masters in this letter as Nellie Owens lived to the age of 80. Masters married William Graham V. Renwick (1864-1924) and had one daughter, Margaret (1900-1982). [2]
Genevieve died of pneumonia on November 7, 1909, in Chicago, [2] just 5 days before her 42nd birthday. Her remains were brought back to De Smet, South Dakota, and buried in the local cemetery.
Estella M. (Gilbert) Merrill | |
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Born | Lake City, Minnesota, U.S. | May , 1864
Died | September 16, 1944 80) Yakima, Washington, U.S. | (aged
The third girl, Stella Gilbert, born in May 1864, lived on a claim north of the Ingallses in De Smet. She was reportedly very attractive and was very interested in Almanzo Wilder. She was possibly the girl who convinced him to take her on several buggy rides, which were described in These Happy Golden Years . Almanzo, who was not aware of a conflict between Stella (Nellie in the books) and Laura, eventually became aware of Stella's fear of horses (which disgusted him). In addition, Laura eventually gave Almanzo an ultimatum regarding Stella, and Almanzo's invitations to Stella to join them on the rides stopped. This was the last appearance of "Nellie Oleson" in the series.[ citation needed ]
Stella's older brother was Dave Gilbert, the brave 17-year-old who made the very risky run to Lake Preston, Dakota Territory, on his horse-drawn sled between blizzards to take the outgoing mail and bring back the incoming mail, as described by Laura in The Long Winter.
Stella died in 1944 at the age of 80. [2]
This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (October 2015) |
Nellie Oleson appeared in three of the Little House novels: On the Banks of Plum Creek (1937), Little Town on the Prairie (1939), and These Happy Golden Years (1943) — the fourth, seventh, and eighth in the series. Laura is 13 to 15 years old in the two intervening novels. On the Banks of Plum Creek alone is set in Minnesota, near Walnut Grove where the long-running television series is set. In that novel Laura is 7 to 9 years old. [4] [ clarification needed ]
Oleson also stars in Nellie Oleson Meets Laura Ingalls, a book by Tui T. Sutherland (as Heather Williams), published by HarperCollins in 2007. The Library of Congress catalog summary is "Wealthy, spoiled Nellie Oleson is only happy when she is the center of attention, and so she feels angry and left out when Laura Ingalls, a poor country girl, moves to Walnut Grove and is embraced by Nellie's friends and schoolteacher." [5] Nellie Oleson Meets Laura Ingalls is one among dozens of Little House series extensions published beginning in the 1990s.[ citation needed ]
Nellie Oleson | |||||||||||
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Little House on the Prairie character | |||||||||||
Portrayed by | Alison Arngrim | ||||||||||
First appearance | 1.02 Country Girls | ||||||||||
Last appearance | 9.08 The Return of Nellie | ||||||||||
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The Little House books were later adapted into a long-running television series. Played by actress Alison Arngrim, Nellie Oleson was a manipulative, witty, sharp-tongued character on the NBC television show, Little House on the Prairie . Her parents, Nels and Harriet Oleson, owned the mercantile in the small town of Walnut Grove, set in post-Civil War Minnesota. Early in the series, the character of Nellie closely resembled her counterpart from the books - mainly as portrayed in On the Banks of Plum Creek. She had long, elaborately curled hair, acted very prissy and spoiled - yet underneath, she could display a vicious and manipulative personality. Nellie took after her doting mother Harriet (Katherine MacGregor), while father Nels (Richard Bull) tended to be more stern with his two children and had little tolerance for Nellie's often cruel antics. Nels and Harriet frequently conflicted on the rearing of both Nellie and Willie (Jonathan Gilbert); Harriet's assertiveness frequently won out, although Nellie was not always allowed to get away with her behavior. For example, on the episode called "The Cheaters", Mrs. Oleson finds out Nellie has cheated and started hitting Nellie with her jacket, while chasing her out of the schoolyard.[ citation needed ]
Arngrim's character grew in importance during the series (as did the roles of the entire Oleson family) as she served as a perfect antagonist to honest, tomboyish Laura Ingalls, played by Melissa Gilbert. Nellie and Laura feuded during their school years together, which was at times comically paralleled with quarreling between the two girls' mothers, Harriet Oleson and Caroline Ingalls (Karen Grassle).
After Nellie graduated from school, her mother Harriet bestowed her with her own restaurant and hotel. At first, Nellie balked, showing great incompetence in the hospitality business. Eventually, Nels and Harriet hired Percival Dalton (played by Steve Tracy) to help Nellie learn how to cook and run the restaurant. During this time, Nellie began maturing and mellowing — thanks to Percival's work with her and Nels' values partially winning out over Harriet's — and fell in love with Percival. The two eventually married, and Nellie gave birth to twin children (Benjamin and Jennifer).[ citation needed ]
Nellie becomes friendly with Laura in her adult years and Laura attended her wedding. Before Nellie takes off for her honeymoon, she throws the bouquet to Laura. In the episode "Come Let us Reason Together", Laura's mother Caroline helped deliver Nellie's twin babies.[ citation needed ]
Arngrim left the series at the end of the seventh season. Nellie's resulting departure was explained by having her move with Percival and their twins to New York to run the family business when Percival's father falls ill; the move is made permanent when Percival's father dies. After Nellie's departure became permanent, the Olesons adopted a daughter named Nancy (played by Allison Balson), who bore a striking resemblance to Nellie, although she had a nastier and meaner disposition than Nellie. Nellie—who retained her pleasant personality seen in her later years—returned in the ninth season and met Nancy, who briefly ran away from home when she (mistakenly) believed that her adoptive parents loved Nellie more than her. When Nellie first meets Nancy and sees how she acts, she asks her parents in shock: "I know I was temperamental at her age, but I wasn't that bad... was I?" They all start to laugh, then they realize she was as bad.[ citation needed ]
Compared to the book On the Banks of Plum Creek , the series presented Nellie Oleson as a much more prominent character. In the books, Nellie's family members are very minor characters, whereas the Olesons became major figures on the series, with several episodes focusing on Nellie or her family. Eventually, the "villainous duo" of mother Harriet and daughter Nellie proved to be very popular with viewers for their often evil, yet humorous, antics.[ citation needed ]
The sketch comedy group The Nellie Olesons took their name after the character.[ citation needed ] [7] [8]
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 loosely based on Laura Ingalls Wilder's best-selling series of Little House books.
Alison Margaret Arngrim is an American actress and author. Beginning her television career at the age of twelve, Arngrim is a Young Artist Award–Former Child Star "Lifetime Achievement" Award honoree, best known for her portrayal of Nellie Oleson on the NBC television series Little House on the Prairie from 1974 to 1982.
Almanzo James Wilder was the husband of Laura Ingalls Wilder and the father of Rose Wilder Lane, both noted authors.
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.
De Smet Cemetery is a cemetery located southwest of the town of De Smet in Kingsbury County, South Dakota, United States. Numerous family members from the Laura Ingalls Wilder Little House books are buried there.
On the Banks of Plum Creek is an autobiographical children's novel written by Laura Ingalls Wilder and published in 1937, the fourth of nine books in her Little House series. It is based on a few years of her childhood when the Ingalls family lived at Plum Creek near Walnut Grove, Minnesota, during the 1870s. The original dust jacket proclaimed, "The true story of an American pioneer family by the author of Little House in the Big Woods".
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.
Little House on the Prairie is an autobiographical children's novel by Laura Ingalls Wilder, published in 1935. It was the third novel published in the Little House series, continuing the story of the first, Little House in the Big Woods (1932), but not related to the second. Thus, it is sometimes called the second one in the series, or the second volume of "the Laura Years".
Let the Hurricane Roar, reissued as Young Pioneers starting from 1976, is a short novel by Rose Wilder Lane that incorporates elements of the childhood of her mother Laura Ingalls Wilder. It was published in The Saturday Evening Post as a serial in 1932 and by Longmans as a book early in 1933, not long after Little House in the Big Woods (1932), the first volume of her mother's Little House series.
Little House on the Prairie is a book musical adapted from the children's books, Little House on the Prairie, by Laura Ingalls Wilder.
Steve Tracy was an American film and television actor. Tracy is best known for his role on Little House on the Prairie as Percival Dalton.
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."
Edwin Hyde "Robert" Alden was an American Congregational minister. He was one of the many real people upon whom Laura Ingalls Wilder based a character in the Little House on the Prairie series of books and the NBC television series of the same name.
Little House on the Prairie: The Legacy of Laura Ingalls Wilder is a documentary film about the life of American author Laura Ingalls Wilder. She is best known for her Little House on the Prairie book series.
"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.