A Wilder in the West

the long version

Eliza Jane lived a life which became a topic of public interest years after her death. Were it not for her brother Almanzo's writer-wife Laura Ingalls Wilder, Eliza Jane's name would have joined the ranks of "hidden women"--Who capably made homes, reared children adn contributed to their localities in the latter part of the last century. Since her status as a supporting character in the "Little House" classics came long after she was gone, the records of her life had simply become family keepsakes -- not historical documents -- and memories garnered by her family from Eliza Jane herself were sketchy and hardly anticipated as future facts surrounding a literary character.