21. Who was Laura's grandmother?
From Quiz The "Little House" Series: Life of Laura Ingalls
Answer:
Charlotte Tucker Holbrook
Charlotte Tucker was born in 1809 after her parents came to the United States, in the small village of Roxbury, near Boston. She married Henry Quiner, and they had seven children. It is said that Laura named the rag doll she received for Christmas when she was five after her Grandmother. Henry died at sea in 1844, during a storm when he was a passenger on a merchant ship. Charlotte moved her family to Concord, Wisconsin in 1847. There, she met Frederick Holbrook. They married in 1845, and had one child, Charlotte, whom they called "Lottie". This was the Aunt Lottie that Laura wrote of in her book, "Little House In The Big Woods".
Maria Wilkes (who authored "The Caroline Years"), was incorrect in saying that Charlotte had been a dressmaker before marrying Henry Quiner and moving from Boston to Brookfield, Wisconsin. Laura Ingalls Wilder mentioned in two books that Charlotte had been a school teacher. I believe the confusion came because this author missed doing some research, because in the book, "Little House In The Big Woods", Laura mentioned in the chapter, "Sugar Snow": "Ma's delaine dress was very beautiful ... A dressmaker had made it, in the East, in the place where Ma came from when she married Pa and moved out west to the Big Woods in Wisconsin. Ma had been very fashionable, before she married Pa, and a dressmaker had made her clothes." I think Laura would have mentioned that Charlotte had been the dressmaker, since she was her Grandmother. The other time Laura mentioned it was in the book "By The Shores Of Silver Lake". In the chapter, "Wings Over Silver Lake", she writes: "Another, thing, Laura," said Pa, "You know Ma was a teacher, and her mother before her." Since Ma's mother is Charlotte, she must have been a teacher, not a dressmaker. Maria Wilkes also misspelled Lewis Tucker's first name. (She spelled it "Louis"). Charlotte died in 1884.