WEBVTT - 3. Daughter Dearest pt. 1: The Hurricane 0:00:02.240 --> 0:00:04.880 Rose had no magic and she knew it. 0:00:04.960 --> 0:00:07.480 Rose was a hack, but a lot of hacks are 0:00:07.520 --> 0:00:08.600 really successful. 0:00:08.960 --> 0:00:10.479 She was a complicated lady. 0:00:11.320 --> 0:00:13.480 My friend Rose is very divisive. You either love her 0:00:13.600 --> 0:00:14.720 or you don't like her at all. 0:00:14.760 --> 0:00:18.080 I find her just so despicable. 0:00:18.680 --> 0:00:21.279 Most of my personal reaction is to feel sorry for Laura. 0:00:21.360 --> 0:00:22.960 I'm like, man, this was her companion. 0:00:23.360 --> 0:00:25.840 She was a bit rhemian, and she just didn't think 0:00:25.920 --> 0:00:30.800 like everybody else did. She's just a kind of louvishly 0:00:31.000 --> 0:00:36.040 talented but incredibly frustrating personality. 0:00:36.360 --> 0:00:40.560 It is amazing the bad mouthing that goes on fifty 0:00:40.640 --> 0:00:44.320 years after her death. I am so disgusted with that, 0:00:44.600 --> 0:00:47.320 because I think Rose was a heroic woman. 0:00:51.520 --> 0:00:54.320 Laura Engels Wilder and her husband Almonzo had one living 0:00:54.400 --> 0:00:57.320 child named Rose. If you only know Rose from the 0:00:57.360 --> 0:00:59.920 Little House in the Perry Books, you don't know much. 0:01:00.680 --> 0:01:03.920 In the first decades of the twentieth century, Rose Wilder 0:01:04.040 --> 0:01:08.679 Lane was one of the most successful and controversial freelance 0:01:08.680 --> 0:01:10.039 writers in the country. 0:01:10.800 --> 0:01:14.120 Rose was such a famous writer in her time. She 0:01:14.280 --> 0:01:15.160 was so popular. 0:01:15.760 --> 0:01:18.919 Rose is the reason Laura, a middle aged farm wife, 0:01:18.959 --> 0:01:24.120 picked up a pen and started writing about eggs Rose 0:01:24.160 --> 0:01:25.520 told her to well. 0:01:25.520 --> 0:01:29.880 They'd had a symbiotic relationship related to writing for many, 0:01:29.959 --> 0:01:35.200 many years. Rose would write her mother and suggest stories 0:01:35.240 --> 0:01:38.600 that she should work up for the Missouri Ruralist or 0:01:38.640 --> 0:01:41.680 some other Kansas or Missouri newspaper. 0:01:42.959 --> 0:01:45.319 Rose was also the one who encouraged her mother to 0:01:45.360 --> 0:01:48.440 do more than write articles about farm life. Rose pushed 0:01:48.520 --> 0:01:51.400 Laura to write the Little Housebooks and was integral to 0:01:51.440 --> 0:01:52.360 the process. 0:01:53.440 --> 0:01:58.440 She was wrapped up so closely in pushing her mother 0:01:59.120 --> 0:02:04.480 to do this riting, in editing and revising and getting 0:02:04.520 --> 0:02:08.200 the books published. She has just woven into the whole 0:02:08.240 --> 0:02:11.440 story in ways that you cannot ignore. 0:02:13.560 --> 0:02:17.880 And it was Rose, the world famous writer, scared of 0:02:17.880 --> 0:02:23.040 being eclipsed by her mother's success, who overcome with jealousy 0:02:23.120 --> 0:02:27.680 and resentment, almost derailed the entire Little House series before 0:02:27.680 --> 0:02:32.720 it even got started. Behind the cozy, wholesome sweetness of 0:02:32.720 --> 0:02:36.120 the Little House Books is a raging mother and daughter 0:02:36.200 --> 0:02:40.079 relationship that is the stuff of soap operas and tabloid 0:02:40.160 --> 0:02:41.079 talk shows. 0:02:41.960 --> 0:02:46.560 I mean, people in Mansfield still there's still memories about 0:02:46.560 --> 0:02:50.480 this hanging around in Mansfield history. That's how big a 0:02:50.520 --> 0:02:51.520 deal it was. 0:02:52.880 --> 0:02:54.520 But how did it get to this point. 0:02:54.960 --> 0:02:58.040 As far as Little House readers know, Rose only appears 0:02:58.080 --> 0:03:01.600 in the First four Years, last and least well known 0:03:01.600 --> 0:03:05.000 of the books. As the title suggests, the First four 0:03:05.080 --> 0:03:08.160 Years covers Laura's first four years of marriage twelve monso 0:03:08.800 --> 0:03:12.240 Rose arrives in the second year, a happy and healthy baby. 0:03:13.240 --> 0:03:16.280 She's named after the prairie roses Laura loves so much. 0:03:17.440 --> 0:03:19.880 A Rose in December was much rarer than a Rose 0:03:19.919 --> 0:03:23.040 in June. Christmas was at hand, and Rose was a 0:03:23.080 --> 0:03:28.040 grand present. It's a sweet, loving description that comes in 0:03:28.080 --> 0:03:32.280 the middle of a very odd, off putting book. Unlike 0:03:32.320 --> 0:03:35.160 the rest of the Little House series, the First four 0:03:35.240 --> 0:03:37.360 Years is not an enjoyable read. 0:03:38.320 --> 0:03:38.880 Yeah, it is. 0:03:38.960 --> 0:03:42.680 Jarring, and I remember that same feeling reading it as 0:03:42.680 --> 0:03:45.320 a kid, like what is this? Where did this come from? 0:03:45.680 --> 0:03:49.440 It's jarring because the First four Years is an unedited manuscript. 0:03:50.160 --> 0:03:52.040 It was never meant to see the light of day. 0:03:52.920 --> 0:03:56.400 It was nevertheless published after both Laura and Rose had died. 0:03:57.680 --> 0:04:00.160 And yet the First four Years might be the most 0:04:00.200 --> 0:04:04.000 pivotal book in the Little House series, written by Laura 0:04:04.080 --> 0:04:06.880 in the aftermath of an epic implosion in Laura and 0:04:06.960 --> 0:04:11.680 Rose's relationship. It eventually launched a decades long conspiracy theory 0:04:11.760 --> 0:04:14.680 over the authorship of the Little House books. If you 0:04:14.800 --> 0:04:17.640 look at all the available information, and you look at 0:04:17.680 --> 0:04:20.919 Laura's writing, and you look at Rose wilder Lane's writing, 0:04:21.160 --> 0:04:26.320 Rose wilder Lane wrote the books. Rose is woven into 0:04:26.360 --> 0:04:29.320 the Little House creation story in ways you can't ignore. 0:04:29.920 --> 0:04:33.680 However you feel about her, there's no question that more 0:04:33.720 --> 0:04:37.600 than Laura's editors, more than Garth Williams, who later illustrated 0:04:37.640 --> 0:04:41.080 the books, Rose is responsible for the Little House series. 0:04:42.480 --> 0:04:45.960 But who was she really? In the first part of 0:04:46.000 --> 0:04:50.280 this two part episode, we're going to meet Rose wilder Lane. 0:04:50.480 --> 0:04:53.599 Where did she come from? What was her life like? 0:04:54.839 --> 0:04:59.440 How did she become her mother's greatest collaborator and underminer? 0:05:00.920 --> 0:05:06.440 Buckle up, I'm Glennis McNichol, and this is part one 0:05:06.640 --> 0:05:52.719 of Rose wilder Lane. The thing about Rose wilder Lane 0:05:53.240 --> 0:05:57.000 is her life story is the stuff of Hollywood, and 0:05:57.080 --> 0:05:59.599 the fact she hasn't been given the Hollywood treatment is 0:05:59.600 --> 0:06:03.960 a bit strange when you consider how much Hollywood Love's adventure, 0:06:04.600 --> 0:06:10.599 drama and scandal like any classic American tale of Rose 0:06:10.640 --> 0:06:13.200 had humble small town beginning the Ingles home. 0:06:13.279 --> 0:06:17.120 Everyone, this is the last house built by Charles Ingles. 0:06:17.279 --> 0:06:18.600 He built this house. 0:06:18.560 --> 0:06:21.280 In eighteen eighty seven and the family moved in on 0:06:21.360 --> 0:06:22.039 Christmas Eve. 0:06:22.200 --> 0:06:25.559 Emily and Iron De Smet, South Dakota, a tiny town 0:06:25.640 --> 0:06:29.360 on the eastern side of the state, surrounded by rolling farmland. 0:06:29.920 --> 0:06:32.760 Dasmet is the setting of the last five Little House books, 0:06:33.160 --> 0:06:36.520 and we're touring the Ingles home. It's a beautiful two 0:06:36.560 --> 0:06:40.160 story house not far from De Smet's main street. At 0:06:40.200 --> 0:06:42.640 some point it was inhabited by all of the Ingles 0:06:43.120 --> 0:06:46.120 except for Laura, who was already married to Almonzo by 0:06:46.160 --> 0:06:47.719 the time Charles built this house. 0:06:47.880 --> 0:06:50.480 This is a photograph of Laura had al Manzo shortly 0:06:50.480 --> 0:06:53.480 after they were married in eighteen eighty five. They had 0:06:53.520 --> 0:06:57.440 their daughter Rose on December fifth of eighteen eighty six, 0:06:57.560 --> 0:06:59.080 and then their luck kind. 0:06:58.920 --> 0:07:00.000 Of ran out for a little while. 0:07:00.440 --> 0:07:02.960 It was during this difficult time for the Wilders that 0:07:03.040 --> 0:07:04.400 Rose lived here in this house. 0:07:04.640 --> 0:07:08.040 Amanda Laura coughed diphtheria, which was a very common disease 0:07:08.080 --> 0:07:11.320 at the time. While they were recovering their daughter, Rose 0:07:11.440 --> 0:07:14.720 stayed here with her grandparents, and the original bedroom upstairs 0:07:14.720 --> 0:07:16.480 became Rose's room. 0:07:16.840 --> 0:07:20.320 Despite the short time she spent here Rose featured prominently 0:07:20.360 --> 0:07:23.520 in our tour. Even from stories about her as a baby, 0:07:24.080 --> 0:07:26.360 evidence of her strong personality is present. 0:07:27.720 --> 0:07:30.320 This is a photograph of Rose when she was young. 0:07:30.680 --> 0:07:32.640 If you look closely, you'll see that she's wearing a 0:07:32.800 --> 0:07:34.840 ring in this photograph. 0:07:35.320 --> 0:07:37.200 The photographer did not want her to. 0:07:37.120 --> 0:07:39.880 Be wearing this ring, so whenever he would pose her 0:07:39.880 --> 0:07:42.760 for her portrait, he would have her hand cover up 0:07:42.800 --> 0:07:45.400 the ring, But whenever he would go behind the sheet 0:07:45.440 --> 0:07:48.040 to take the photo, she would always switch her hands back. 0:07:49.000 --> 0:07:50.360 Even as a child, she. 0:07:50.400 --> 0:07:53.040 Was very strong willed and independent. 0:07:53.840 --> 0:07:56.080 She grew up in to be quite the strong willed, 0:07:56.200 --> 0:07:57.400 independent adult. 0:07:59.200 --> 0:08:02.240 Because so little known about Rose outside her minimal presence 0:08:02.240 --> 0:08:05.080 in the books, the truth of Rose's early years can 0:08:05.080 --> 0:08:07.800 come as quite a shock to readers who only know 0:08:07.920 --> 0:08:10.920 her as the sweet baby Laura wrote about. But Rose 0:08:10.960 --> 0:08:13.720 was a force of nature and her story is at 0:08:13.800 --> 0:08:17.720 least as wild as Laura's, if not more so. I 0:08:17.840 --> 0:08:19.480 talked Joe through her basic bio. 0:08:20.560 --> 0:08:22.960 Well walk me through, just walk me through her early 0:08:23.080 --> 0:08:25.640 childhood and her life, And just like wrote, I want 0:08:25.680 --> 0:08:28.880 to hear about Rose before she became Rose. 0:08:31.400 --> 0:08:31.640 Right. 0:08:33.400 --> 0:08:36.880 So, she was born in eighteen eighty six, in Dismet, 0:08:36.920 --> 0:08:40.360 South Dakota, which we've been to because that's where Laura lived. 0:08:40.840 --> 0:08:44.600 Laura was only nineteen when she got pregnant. They'd only 0:08:44.640 --> 0:08:48.440 been married. Her and Almonzo had seven babies babies having babies, 0:08:48.480 --> 0:08:51.080 Her and Almondo had only been married for one year. 0:08:51.520 --> 0:08:56.120 Shortly after Rose was born, Laura Almonzo get diphtheria. Almonzo 0:08:56.200 --> 0:09:00.360 has a stroke. He's partially paralyzed. Their crops fail, they 0:09:00.600 --> 0:09:02.520 lose their house, they lose all their money. 0:09:03.000 --> 0:09:04.280 Laura has a. 0:09:04.320 --> 0:09:08.080 Baby boy who dies a few weeks after birth. Their 0:09:08.080 --> 0:09:12.680 house burns down. Like it's a very traumatic early childhood. 0:09:12.760 --> 0:09:17.559 They were very poor, right poor. They're so poor that 0:09:17.640 --> 0:09:20.920 for her whole life, Rose had terrible teeth. She was 0:09:21.080 --> 0:09:24.080 very resentful of that. She's a very very smart kid, 0:09:24.080 --> 0:09:27.199 like she's very smart from a young age. And right 0:09:27.240 --> 0:09:31.800 around the age of eight, they see an advertisement for 0:09:32.160 --> 0:09:35.200 the Ozarks, the Land of Apples, and they decide to 0:09:35.200 --> 0:09:38.480 move to the Ozarks. So they take the you know, 0:09:38.520 --> 0:09:42.640 they go to the Ozarks with one one hundred dollars bill. 0:09:43.120 --> 0:09:45.240 They get to the Ozarks and buy this land. But 0:09:45.320 --> 0:09:48.760 it's called Rocky Ridge because it's full of rocks, and 0:09:48.840 --> 0:09:52.079 it takes years to clear and years to be self sufficient. 0:09:52.120 --> 0:09:55.800 They're deeply, deeply poor. Rose is dressed in I wouldn't 0:09:55.840 --> 0:09:58.960 say rags, but she's not dressed well, and she's so 0:09:59.120 --> 0:10:01.000 aware of this when she she goes to school, the 0:10:01.040 --> 0:10:04.400 class discrepancy of how smart she is and how poor 0:10:04.480 --> 0:10:10.479 she looks. And sometime in high school she's so advanced 0:10:10.679 --> 0:10:15.959 that her mother sends her off to live with Eliza Jane, 0:10:16.400 --> 0:10:21.080 Almonzo's sister. As much as Rose hated Mansfield and resented 0:10:21.080 --> 0:10:24.439 her mother and adored her father, she always wanted to 0:10:24.520 --> 0:10:27.080 leave Mansfield. She could never help. She was always coming back. 0:10:27.120 --> 0:10:29.080 She was always coming home. She went to high school 0:10:29.080 --> 0:10:33.520 with Eliza Jane comes back. But there's some sense, and 0:10:33.520 --> 0:10:35.319 of course these things are hard to gauge, but there 0:10:35.400 --> 0:10:40.960 is some sense in Caroline Fraser's book that Rose may 0:10:41.000 --> 0:10:43.280 have been I mean, I'm using loaded words here, but 0:10:43.320 --> 0:10:44.640 these are the words that I think would have been 0:10:44.640 --> 0:10:46.720 attached to her at the time. She was like perhaps 0:10:46.720 --> 0:10:52.679 a little promiscuous, that she, you know, liked boys and 0:10:53.200 --> 0:10:57.080 was maybe a little risky for I mean, my god, 0:10:57.120 --> 0:11:01.720 can you imagine what small town Ozarks would like fun 0:11:02.320 --> 0:11:06.679 Rose and Laura had an extremely fraught relationship from very 0:11:06.720 --> 0:11:10.920 early on because as a mother, I imagine there's a lot 0:11:10.960 --> 0:11:13.000 of guilt in not being able to provide your daughter 0:11:13.040 --> 0:11:15.480 with certain things or not knowing how to handle her. 0:11:15.520 --> 0:11:19.760 And Laura was a teen mom. They're so poor. 0:11:20.320 --> 0:11:23.560 She's got a husband with a disability, Laura's been working 0:11:23.600 --> 0:11:26.080 since the age of nine, and she has a daughter 0:11:26.280 --> 0:11:29.880 who is a lot to handle. So we know from 0:11:29.960 --> 0:11:32.640 Laura writing about herself that she had a temper. She 0:11:32.760 --> 0:11:35.240 was very candid about that when she wrote about her 0:11:35.280 --> 0:11:38.640 childhood in the Little House series, and she was headstrong, 0:11:39.280 --> 0:11:42.200 and I think you see that in Rose. You see 0:11:42.240 --> 0:11:46.439 that sort of aggressiveness in the controlling nature. Caroline Fraser's 0:11:46.480 --> 0:11:52.000 book Prairie Fires, she writes extensively about Rose, and Caroline writes, 0:11:52.080 --> 0:11:54.960 you know, yes, Laura had a temper, but Laura was 0:11:55.080 --> 0:11:58.160 willing to acknowledge that temper. But Laura was able to 0:11:59.080 --> 0:12:03.280 recognize her laws and Rose seemed unable. 0:12:04.080 --> 0:12:07.000 Yeah, I imagine them butting heads. Right. You have these 0:12:07.000 --> 0:12:13.760 two strong, ambitious, smart, ahead of their time women who 0:12:14.360 --> 0:12:16.280 you know, I could already see it happening with my 0:12:16.320 --> 0:12:19.760 own daughter, Like when you have these two strong personalities. 0:12:19.800 --> 0:12:21.920 I think it becomes very difficult. 0:12:22.600 --> 0:12:25.680 Rose, which I think we can both relate to, got 0:12:25.720 --> 0:12:29.280 the hell out of Mansfield, Missouri as soon as she could. 0:12:29.440 --> 0:12:33.600 She met a man called je Lette Lane, Like, this 0:12:33.679 --> 0:12:35.680 is the least surprising thing. A man named je Let Lane. 0:12:36.240 --> 0:12:40.840 He's a confidence man, which man is a con man. 0:12:41.200 --> 0:12:44.160 They were married for technically they were married for a while, 0:12:44.160 --> 0:12:47.120 and they had a tumultuous marriage. They were, you know itinerant, 0:12:48.160 --> 0:12:52.760 always trying to pull together con scam might be probably 0:12:52.800 --> 0:12:59.880 cons funds, Yeah, probably cons. And Rose became pregnant and 0:13:00.080 --> 0:13:03.040 then had a still birth, and a very very difficult 0:13:03.040 --> 0:13:06.000 still birth that made it impossible for her to have 0:13:06.280 --> 0:13:09.000 children after that, and was ill for quite some like 0:13:09.000 --> 0:13:11.960 in the hospital for quite a long time, and eventually 0:13:12.400 --> 0:13:19.600 their marriage falls apart. She goes to San Francisco on 0:13:19.640 --> 0:13:23.199 her own and read about nineteen fifteen. 0:13:23.559 --> 0:13:24.520 Not how old was she then? 0:13:24.840 --> 0:13:27.079 She would have been in nineteen fifteen, she would have 0:13:27.120 --> 0:13:32.520 been almost thirty. She falls for divorce, which in nineteen fifteen, 0:13:32.559 --> 0:13:36.520 even in San Francisco, is scandalous. 0:13:35.640 --> 0:13:36.440 Not a small thing. 0:13:36.640 --> 0:13:39.719 Yeah, And right around this time, you know, Rose is 0:13:39.760 --> 0:13:44.439 alone in San Francisco and she writes Laura this incredibly 0:13:44.559 --> 0:13:49.559 endearing letter and asking Laura to come to San Francisco 0:13:49.600 --> 0:13:53.320 and visit her. She says, dearest Mama Bess, which is 0:13:53.320 --> 0:13:56.920 what she called Laura her whole life, because Almonzo called 0:13:57.240 --> 0:14:00.080 Laura Bess, and so the fact that Rose includes her 0:14:00.080 --> 0:14:02.640 first name sort of is like she sees her mother 0:14:02.679 --> 0:14:04.880 as a bit of a contemporary, even from a young age. 0:14:04.880 --> 0:14:08.640 But dearest Mama Bess, I simply can't stand being so 0:14:08.920 --> 0:14:11.920 homesick for you anymore. You must plan to come out 0:14:11.920 --> 0:14:15.560 here in July or at latest August. You've simply all 0:14:15.640 --> 0:14:19.480 cap got to. I can send you five dollars a 0:14:19.480 --> 0:14:21.600 week to make up for what you will lose in chickens, 0:14:21.640 --> 0:14:22.320 et cetera. 0:14:22.160 --> 0:14:22.840 By the trip. 0:14:23.240 --> 0:14:24.120 I think that's sweet. 0:14:24.760 --> 0:14:25.520 It is sweet. 0:14:25.520 --> 0:14:29.760 And also knowing that in so many of Rose's journals 0:14:29.840 --> 0:14:33.360 she wrote with deep resentment over giving her parents money. 0:14:33.440 --> 0:14:36.960 It's like she is internally conflicted about how much she 0:14:37.040 --> 0:14:40.360 loves and needs them, like her mother, particularly like they're 0:14:40.400 --> 0:14:45.480 so intertwined they cannot separate from each other even in 0:14:45.520 --> 0:14:49.000 their worst moments. Their lives are so connected and they 0:14:49.160 --> 0:14:52.560 need each other so badly. Anyway, Roses in San Francisco, 0:14:52.760 --> 0:14:55.160 she gets divorced, she gets a job at the San 0:14:55.200 --> 0:15:00.240 Francisco Bulletin as a secretary, but then her talents are 0:15:00.920 --> 0:15:04.080 noticed almost immediately, and she gets moved up into an 0:15:04.160 --> 0:15:08.440 editor position. And then she gets moved up into a 0:15:08.520 --> 0:15:11.480 reporter position and starts going out and reporting stories. 0:15:11.840 --> 0:15:15.920 Wow, that's amazing, Yeah yeah yeah wow. So what kind 0:15:16.000 --> 0:15:19.960 of newspaper was that? Was that, say, the New York 0:15:20.000 --> 0:15:22.040 Times or the New York Post. 0:15:24.040 --> 0:15:26.520 Well, this is still the heyday of yellow journalism, right, 0:15:26.600 --> 0:15:31.560 and many newspapers at that time encouraged a degree of 0:15:32.000 --> 0:15:35.400 salaciousness and exaggeration. 0:15:34.960 --> 0:15:36.880 Scandal and scandal cells. 0:15:36.560 --> 0:15:39.960 Scandal, And you know, into this world arrives Rose, who 0:15:40.040 --> 0:15:44.800 it turns out, has an enormous talent for taking a 0:15:44.960 --> 0:15:50.480 kernel of truth and turning it into a fantastic tale that. 0:15:50.520 --> 0:15:52.680 Is maybe or maybe not true. 0:15:53.000 --> 0:15:54.040 Right, Like, there's a. 0:15:54.040 --> 0:15:57.000 Very tenuous connection and she was really really good at it. 0:15:57.040 --> 0:16:01.240 And again it's easy in hindsight to be like, oh, 0:16:01.240 --> 0:16:05.720 that's very shoddy journalism. But having survived both of us 0:16:06.360 --> 0:16:10.360 on the blogosphere and entabloid papers in your case, it's 0:16:10.400 --> 0:16:13.920 like she's a single woman supporting herself in a city. 0:16:13.920 --> 0:16:15.960 That's not easy, not an easy city. 0:16:16.800 --> 0:16:21.560 No, and she's supporting two aging parents who are financially unstable. 0:16:22.000 --> 0:16:25.440 You know, in Missouri, it's like, if you're good at this. 0:16:26.560 --> 0:16:30.520 Lean in, lean in. And she leaned right, she leaned, and. 0:16:30.480 --> 0:16:33.360 She was very good. You know, she's so good at that. 0:16:33.400 --> 0:16:39.400 She immediately starts pitching these biographies of you know, Herbert Hoover, 0:16:39.440 --> 0:16:42.560 who is a politician, then and Charlie Chaplin and Jack London, 0:16:43.080 --> 0:16:46.520 and pitches them to publishing houses and to their relatives 0:16:46.520 --> 0:16:48.720 and in one case to Charlie Chaplin himself. 0:16:48.760 --> 0:16:50.080 I think, as like. 0:16:50.480 --> 0:16:55.760 Highly researched, respectable biographies, and they participated. And then these 0:16:56.040 --> 0:17:00.600 so called biographies get published and they are less by biographies, 0:17:00.880 --> 0:17:05.480 then fantastical tales with one or two facts in them 0:17:06.440 --> 0:17:10.680 and a number I think Jack London's widow sued her, 0:17:11.280 --> 0:17:14.080 Charlie Chaplin tried to sue her. Herbert Hoover was like, 0:17:14.880 --> 0:17:17.520 wanted to distance himself from her, He wanted nothing to 0:17:17.560 --> 0:17:21.639 do with her. Henry Ford's widow was furious. But the 0:17:21.720 --> 0:17:23.359 thing about all that that stands out to me is 0:17:23.359 --> 0:17:26.160 that she was not apologetic. It's not like she was like, oh, 0:17:26.200 --> 0:17:28.399 you caught me. She was like, what are you talking about? 0:17:28.440 --> 0:17:30.960 I wrote a great book. It makes you look fantastic. 0:17:31.400 --> 0:17:34.439 She sounds amazing to me. I stand by my earlier statement. 0:17:34.840 --> 0:17:36.560 I think Rose sounds like a lot of fun. 0:17:36.640 --> 0:17:40.160 She also sounds like she could have worked at Cocker. 0:17:39.320 --> 0:17:44.240 All of the things she's doing again feel very relatable 0:17:44.320 --> 0:17:46.720 and very modern, and she was very good at it. 0:17:46.760 --> 0:17:51.439 And she is definitely making questionable decisions. But by the 0:17:51.480 --> 0:17:56.359 early twenties, she's making bank They paid so highly, and 0:17:56.440 --> 0:17:58.840 she was so good at these. She moved into short 0:17:58.880 --> 0:18:01.919 story writing, which in the twenty for magazines was very profitable. 0:18:02.480 --> 0:18:06.679 She started traveling, like she traveled to Albania, She hiked 0:18:06.720 --> 0:18:09.440 the mountains by herself. She was all over Europe after 0:18:09.480 --> 0:18:13.240 the war. She was in Paris in the nineteen twenties 0:18:13.359 --> 0:18:14.199 with that crowd. 0:18:14.600 --> 0:18:16.879 Yeah, yeah, good Paris. Time, good Paris. 0:18:17.160 --> 0:18:20.520 She was in her forties, and she apparently she apparently 0:18:20.680 --> 0:18:26.880 attended an orgy as an observer. We don't think she participated, 0:18:26.880 --> 0:18:27.600 but again. 0:18:27.720 --> 0:18:28.240 Who knows. 0:18:28.359 --> 0:18:30.000 We don't know, We don't know. 0:18:30.520 --> 0:18:32.840 Again, our sense of this too, Caroline Fraser writes, like 0:18:32.880 --> 0:18:34.960 our sense of her in these time periods are sometimes 0:18:35.000 --> 0:18:37.840 coming from her sort of colleagues, many of whom are 0:18:37.880 --> 0:18:41.480 not nice about her. And we both know writing about 0:18:41.520 --> 0:18:46.920 women who strong personalities is a very tenuous business. 0:18:47.000 --> 0:18:48.640 History is not kind to strong women. 0:18:48.440 --> 0:18:52.360 But colleagues are not kind to strong women like no, 0:18:52.880 --> 0:18:55.959 And again, Rose was a very difficult person, and she 0:18:56.040 --> 0:19:00.399 had very questionable views on a number of issues. You know, 0:19:00.440 --> 0:19:06.120 in hindsight, we see her as this incredibly adventurous, talented 0:19:07.240 --> 0:19:11.760 woman who's traveling around Europe, you know, after the war. 0:19:11.880 --> 0:19:14.240 She's in Albania, she's hiking in the mountains by herself, 0:19:14.240 --> 0:19:17.680 and she's in Paris and it's so enviable. But Rose 0:19:17.720 --> 0:19:22.000 herself was so ashamed of the poverty that she'd been 0:19:22.080 --> 0:19:25.000 raised in, and it was something she carried with her 0:19:25.400 --> 0:19:28.280 her whole life, which is, I think, something to remember, 0:19:28.359 --> 0:19:30.720 like these things from childhood that we carry don't just 0:19:30.760 --> 0:19:31.560 go away. 0:19:32.280 --> 0:19:34.000 And she wrote in her journal like Rose is. 0:19:34.000 --> 0:19:36.240 A big diary keeper, which is how we know a 0:19:36.280 --> 0:19:37.760 lot of this, right, We know a lot of this 0:19:37.840 --> 0:19:39.720 from Rose's own diary, so you have to sort of 0:19:39.760 --> 0:19:41.800 read it, read between the lines. 0:19:41.800 --> 0:19:42.520 From time to time. 0:19:42.640 --> 0:19:45.560 She's not the most reliable narrator, as we've established, but 0:19:46.640 --> 0:19:50.560 she She wrote in her diary in the late twenties 0:19:51.040 --> 0:19:53.600 and said, I would change places with any young woman 0:19:53.680 --> 0:19:59.200 with intelligent, simple, harmonious parents, good health, and a cultured background. 0:20:00.720 --> 0:20:03.119 And I mean, we know this, but we all know 0:20:03.160 --> 0:20:07.359 from social media that you're drawn to the depiction of 0:20:07.400 --> 0:20:09.399 the thing you feel you don't have. And it's so 0:20:09.640 --> 0:20:15.680 clear that Rose desperately wanted to not have come from poverty, 0:20:15.800 --> 0:20:19.160 to have been better educated, to have had parents who 0:20:20.240 --> 0:20:22.480 she felt should have been more loving to her. 0:20:23.000 --> 0:20:25.919 I feel that really hard, though, because I grew up 0:20:25.960 --> 0:20:29.960 with parents who were both a hot mess, and all 0:20:30.040 --> 0:20:35.080 I wanted growing up was stability. And so that line 0:20:35.119 --> 0:20:37.000 that she writes and the guest, I would have traded 0:20:37.640 --> 0:20:41.040 with any girl who had a stable home and who 0:20:41.119 --> 0:20:43.240 had the things that I didn't have. And I think 0:20:43.280 --> 0:20:46.440 that it made me a massive striver as an. 0:20:46.400 --> 0:20:49.240 Adult and someone who has a great deal of stability. 0:20:50.200 --> 0:20:53.720 Now you exactly, yeah, Yeah, who built stability because I 0:20:53.720 --> 0:20:54.840 did not have it as a child. 0:20:57.080 --> 0:21:00.600 Rose definitely craves stability throughout her life, and for a 0:21:00.640 --> 0:21:03.199 long time she had the funds to achieve it, but 0:21:03.240 --> 0:21:07.120 at every turn Rose managed to undermine herself, making an 0:21:07.200 --> 0:21:10.880 endless series of bad financial decisions just when she got 0:21:10.880 --> 0:21:14.240 closest to getting the thing she wanted. But nothing would 0:21:14.280 --> 0:21:16.720 compare to what Rose did when she returned to Mansfield, 0:21:16.760 --> 0:21:20.240 Missouri in the late nineteen twenties. Rosa spent her entire 0:21:20.280 --> 0:21:23.000 life trying to get away from Rocky Ridge, and now 0:21:23.040 --> 0:21:25.320 she was back, and the first thing she did was 0:21:25.400 --> 0:21:28.000 use her money to build her parents a new house, 0:21:28.440 --> 0:21:32.840 a house that neither Laura or Almonza wanted or needed. 0:21:34.280 --> 0:21:37.800 This house would become the setting of the most explosive, 0:21:38.160 --> 0:21:43.560 damaging decision Rose ever made, one her mother Laura never 0:21:43.640 --> 0:21:44.120 got over. 0:21:50.600 --> 0:21:51.280 I think it's this. 0:21:53.640 --> 0:21:56.639 Wilder rock house nine hundred. 0:21:56.400 --> 0:22:00.199 Feet remember Laura's house Rocky Ridge in Mansfield, Missouri, are 0:22:00.240 --> 0:22:03.400 designed to her own specifications, right down to the height 0:22:03.440 --> 0:22:04.240 of the kitchen counter. 0:22:05.480 --> 0:22:08.760 Well up the hill, there's another house, the Rock House. 0:22:14.160 --> 0:22:15.000 I love this house. 0:22:16.359 --> 0:22:17.639 I don't want to live in this house. 0:22:19.040 --> 0:22:20.280 These windows. 0:22:20.440 --> 0:22:24.960 Rose built this as a little, uh retiredment home before 0:22:25.000 --> 0:22:25.600 her parents. 0:22:25.800 --> 0:22:29.640 The Rock House cost eleven thousand dollars to build, close 0:22:29.680 --> 0:22:32.919 to two hundred thousand dollars in today's money, and became 0:22:33.000 --> 0:22:37.000 a metaphor for Rose's relationship with her parents. After childhood 0:22:37.000 --> 0:22:40.639 of severe poverty. Rose wanted them to have something beautiful 0:22:40.720 --> 0:22:45.000 and expensive, proof of her success and value in the world. 0:22:45.320 --> 0:22:47.440 To me, it looks like such a glamorous house, these 0:22:47.440 --> 0:22:51.280 Florida ceiling windows and the armed doors and the casement windows. 0:22:51.280 --> 0:22:51.680 It's so. 0:22:53.680 --> 0:22:55.520 Like it could be in a Hollywood film. 0:22:55.720 --> 0:22:59.720 No expense was spared, and was there electricity in the house? 0:22:59.760 --> 0:23:00.280 Yes? 0:23:00.720 --> 0:23:03.880 Rose brought down the electricity at her own expense. 0:23:04.240 --> 0:23:07.639 From what I recall, I don't think very many houses 0:23:07.840 --> 0:23:10.880 in this part of the state had access to electricity. 0:23:10.960 --> 0:23:11.880 Is that now. 0:23:12.800 --> 0:23:17.879 Most of them didn't get electricity until the forties. But 0:23:18.000 --> 0:23:21.640 and it cost her three thousand dollars, which in those 0:23:21.680 --> 0:23:22.800 days is my way. 0:23:22.640 --> 0:23:26.320 For those wondering, three thousand dollars in nineteen twenty eight 0:23:26.440 --> 0:23:29.840 is the equivalent of fifty three thousand dollars in today's money. 0:23:31.840 --> 0:23:35.359 So Rose built her dream house, insisting it was also 0:23:35.440 --> 0:23:38.960 her parents' dream house and the best thing for them. 0:23:39.400 --> 0:23:42.720 But neither Laura nor Almonzo particularly wanted to live there. 0:23:43.560 --> 0:23:47.280