Settler, Author. Born Laura Elizabeth Ingalls in Pepin, Wisconsin, the second daughter of Charles and Caroline Quiner Ingalls. The Ingalls family traveled by covered wagon to short residences in Iowa, Minnesota, and Kansas, before settling in DeSmet, South Dakota, one of two families who founded the town. To help her sister, Mary , receive an education at the Iowa College for the Blind, in Vinton, Iowa, Laura obtained her teaching certificate at age 15. In 1885, Laura married Almanzo James Wilder in DeSmet, and their daughter, Rose, was born the following year. In 1894, the young family relocated to Mansfield in the Missouri Ozark Mountains, where Laura and Almanzo built the prosperous Rocky Ridge Farm. During World War I, Laura became a columnist for The Missouri Ruralist, with the popular and thoughtful weekly, "As A Farm Wife Thinks." In 1932, she began writing the "Little House" books, an 8-part series, hand-written over 11 years, and delightfully illustrated by Garth Williams, based on her pioneer childhood and youth. In her books, Laura stressed the importance of family, faith, simple values, and self-sufficiency. The books have remained enduringly popular, continuing to be published and read worldwide today. After 63 years of marriage, Almanzo died in 1949. Laura continued to live at Rocky Ridge Farm until her passing in 1957, at the age of 90. In 1954, Garth Williams designed the bronze Laura Ingalls Wilder Medal for presentation to Laura as the first recipient. The medal, administered by the Association for Library Service to Children, is an annual award presented to "an author or illustrator whose books, written in the United States, have made, over the years, a substantial and lasting contribution to literature for children." There are museums across the United States at the sites where the Ingalls and Wilder families lived, including the Laura Ingalls Wilder Home and Museum at Rocky Ridge Farm. The home that Laura and Almanzo built by hand has been preserved just as it was when the Wilders' were in residence. Laura and Almanzo's daughter, Rose Wilder Lane, became a noted novelist and political writer.