Laura Ingles Wilder (1867-1957) was born in rural Pepin, Wisconsin - a town with a population of around 2,300. Laura Wilder was a descendant of United States President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and has ancestral roots from Lincolnshire, England that emigrated to Massachusetts during the pioneer settlements of the 1600s.
Laura Wilder was known for her iconic Little House on the Prairie children’s series that was based on her childhood experiences living a pioneer life on the Western frontier. She started writing the children's series when she was sixty-five years old and published her first book, Little House in the Big Woods, in 1932. She continued to write until she died in 1957.
Her works remain popular among children led to additional spinoffs of the series from other authors and the eventual production of a television series by NBC that ran for 9 seasons with Michael Landon and Melissa Gilbert as the main characters.