At the age of six, a box set of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s books ignited Kelly Kathleen Ferguson’s intrigue for the author and her stories of life on the prairie.
Ferguson, a graduate student studying creative nonfiction, took her infatuation with the Little House series and transformed it into a book of her own, My Life as Laura: How I Searched for Laura Ingalls Wilder and Found Myself. Ferguson will read from her self-described “humorous narrative nonfiction book” at Donkey Coffee and Espresso, 17 1/2 W. Washington St., at 7 p.m. Friday.
In 2008, Ferguson spent two weeks traveling to locations where Wilder lived during her life — she even donned a traditional prairie dress for her journey.
“When I was moving out west, I saw a sign that said ‘Laura Ingalls Wilder homestead’ and I had the realization that the locations in Laura’s books aren’t like Narnia or Hogwarts — I realized I can actually visit them,” she said.
Ferguson retraced the journey that Ingalls Wilder took with her pioneer family and stopped at every location where the Ingalls Wilders inhabited in the nine Little House books. She went from Wisconsin to Minnesota, from South Dakota to Missouri, and even stopped in Kansas for an afternoon.
“De Smet, South Dakota was my favorite,” Ferguson said. “It was real, arid, wide-open prairie and four of the books take place there, so I have a particularly strong connection with it.”
Wearing a traditional prairie dress during her journey gave Ferguson another chance to connect with Ingalls Wilder, even though people she encountered were not exactly sure how to react to her wardrobe choice.
“I thought, ‘Oh this will be fun,’ ” she said. “But people didn’t know what to do with me. … It changed the way people interacted with me — some were curious, some were nervous.”
Though Ferguson dove headfirst into exploring the life and history of her idol, she did face some deterrents.
“There’s the risk of getting to know something you love too much,” Ferguson said. “Part of the book is me trying to reconcile new things learned about Laura in reading biographies, but at the end I admire her as much as I ever did.”
Ferguson will read from chapter one of her book at Donkey tomorrow, which sets up the reasons she took this journey. Her book is available for purchase from Amazon and she will have copies of the book for sale at the reading.
“If people have ever wanted to take an adventure or find out something about themselves, I hope they are inspired to do so,” Ferguson said.
bm257008@ohiou.edu
