Holy mother trucker! Credo: The Rose Wilder Lane Story is another roller coaster ride. Peter Bagge created something part love letter to Wilder and part “Watch Out for This Gal” story.
The introduction and historical afterwards are probably the best part of a GD AWESOME book. However, sadly, I do not see people flocking to get it. Rose Wilder Lane (while a household name during her time) is small potatoes now compared to her mother (a gal you might have heard of, Laura Ingles Wilder). But perhaps Lane should be even more well-known than Wilder.
Her personal and mental issues are delicately and honestly portrayed. Her ideals came naturally because of her background, upbringing, travels, gender, society and the time and how she came of age. And due to that perhaps Lane is the perfect example of late 19th/early 20th century.
There is much going on in these pages. We see a woman ahead of her time. She was feminist, a writer, champion of the farmer and the little person. She unofficially “adopted” sons and grandchildren. She believed in education and fiscal responsibility. When people were gardening to be patriotic, she did it to defy the government as she would not take anything rationed. When offered a job that paid the low amount of $60, she said, “Make it $50. That way I don’t have to pay income taxes.” And she saw the writing on the wall for the way the country was going. She mentions more than once how much freedom do we give up being patriotic or because of the way we were allowing our government to go? World War One and Two she knew would come at a high price: not just in monetary issues and in lives, but in freedoms given up. She was a fascist, communistic, anarchist and then was not at various times in her life. Perhaps, if anything she was always an Libertarian as she felt the best government would be none, but also knew how that would be impossible. She would write about the world and how it should be. Her books would inspire others and among other things, make the FBI have a sizable file on her and to comment, “She’s poor on purpose? Is that legal?” Yet, she also edited, ghost-write and write one of the most popular books on needlepoint. The extremes of her life are mind-blowing.
And if four things had differed (had she gotten help with her mental state (she is said to have been bipolar); had she had more “hands on” parental love from her parents; had the death of her son not happened and had she not been female) would we still have had one bada$$ lady to study? Would she have had the impact at the time she did? Forget the popular women biographies GET THIS BOOK NOW.