When Laura was still very young, her father took a homestead that was actually in Indian Territory, and, after less than two years in Kansas, they returned to the Big Woods. Living in the Big Woods of Pepin, Wisconsin, for a couple more years, her father's restless spirit led them on various moves to Walnut Grove, Minnesota, for a few years, Burr Oak, Iowa, for a year, and back to Walnut Grove for a couple of years. Finally the family eventually settled in DeSmet, Dakota Territory, in the spring of 1879 when Pa, Charles Ingalls, took a job as the bookkeeper for the railroad. After staying the winter of 1879–1880 in the Surveyor's house, the Ingalls family was there to watch the town of DeSmet rise up from the prairie in 1880.

The following winter, 1880–1881, came one of the hardest winters in the Dakotas. After settling in to the homestead south of Silver Lake, one mile from town, Laura attended school, made many friends, and met homesteader Almanzo Wilder (1857–1949). At the age of 15, Laura started her teaching career at the Brewster school, 12 miles from DeSmet. A few more teaching semesters followed, and then, because married women were not allowed to teach at that time, Laura ended her teaching career when she married Almanzo on August 25, 1885. She joined Almanzo in a new home on his tree claim north of DeSmet and helped him prove that farming could be a great way to make a living. Within a short time, she gave birth to the novelist, journalist, and political theorist Rose Wilder Lane (1886–1968) and later, an unnamed son, who died soon after birth in 1889.

The first few years of marriage held many trials and tribulations. Complications from a life-threatening bout of diphtheria left Almanzo partially paralyzed. While he eventually regained nearly full use of his legs, he needed a cane to walk for the remainder of his life. This setback, among many others, began a series of disastrous events that included the death of their unnamed newborn son, the destruction of their home and barn by fire, and several years of severe drought that left them in debt, physically ill, and unable to earn a living from their 320 acres of prairie land.

The tales of their trials farming can be found in The First Four Years, a manuscript that was discovered after Rose Wilder Lane's death. It was published in 1971, and gave Laura fans the details of the hard-fought first four years of marriage on the Dakota prairies.

Rocky Ridge Farm

In 1894, the hard-pressed young couple moved a final time to Mansfield, Missouri making a partial down payment on a piece of undeveloped property just outside town that they named Rocky Ridge Farm. What began as about 40 acres of thickly wooded, stone-covered hillside with a log cabin, over the next twenty years, evolved into a 200 acre , relatively prosperous, poultry, dairy, and fruit farm. The ramshackle log cabin was eventually replaced with an impressive and unique ten-room farmhouse and outbuildings.

The couple's climb to financial security was a slow process. Initially, the only income the farm produced was from wagonloads of firewood Almanzo sold for fifty cents in town, the result of the backbreaking work of clearing the trees and stones from land that slowly evolved into fertile fields and pastures. The apple trees would not begin to bear fruit for seven years. Barely able to eke out a more than a subsistence living on the new farm, the Wilders decided to move into nearby Mansfield in the late 1890s. Almanzo found work as an oil salesman and general delivery man, while Laura took in boarders and served meals to local railroad workers. Any spare time was spent improving the farm and planning for a better future.

This period ended with a visit from Almanzo's parents. At the end of their visit, they presented to Laura and Almanzo, as a gift, the deed to the house they had been renting in Mansfield. This allowed Laura and Almanzo to put their former rent money into the farm, and shortly afterward, they were able to move back to the farm permanently, and begin making their living exclusively from the land itself. The farm was profitable almost from the first, though not lucratively so. Still, it provided enough income for the Wilders to merge comfortably into Mansfield's middle class, where they would remain until Laura's income many years later from her "Little House" books made financial problems moot for them.

I consider Laura Ingalls a Woman of Courage because Pioneer life was anything but easy plus she overcame many difficulties with her husband Almanzo. If she had not recorded and later published her life’s story people of future generations would not have a good glimpse of what life was like in Early America.

Contributed by Carla :)