You just know I had to mention this today! It’s Laura Ingalls Wilder’s birthday. She was born on February 7, 1867, in that famous little house in the Big Woods near Pepin, Wisconsin.
As it happens, Charles Dickens was born on the same day, 55 years earlier, just a few months before the U.S. reached its boiling point and declared war on Great Britain, launching the War of 1812. Laura’s maternal grandmother, Charlotte Tucker, was not quite three years old when Dickens was born. Dickens died in 1870, when Laura was three. Jane finds this to be an interesting symmetry.
Click here for more famous folks born on February 7th. Among them are John Deere of tractor fame (1804), the German composer Ernst Franck (1847), novelist Sinclair Lewis (1885), and Hrafnhildur Hafsteinsdottir, Iceland’s 1996 Miss Universe winner (1976). (Okay, so I’ve never heard of her before. Who could resist that name!)
My daughter Mary is born on Laura Ingalls Wilders birthday. My daughter Laura is named after Laura Ingalls Wilder. The girls get a big kick out of saying that Mary is born on Laura’s birthday. (I think they have too much time on their hands :-))
Birthday Round-up
This sort of thing is supposed to be Robbo’s gig, but since he was all a swoon what with Odana Matthews and the Giant Gestapo trying to pry loose his phone number so to be able to track with their…
Don’t you mean symme-THREE?