Post 7:
April Little House Newsletter

From Anne —

Had I been born in 1999, it would have been a website. But I was born in ‘69 to a librarian mother. Naturally, a gate-folded newsletter hand-copied in a colorful variety of Bic Banana markers was my medium.

My subject? The entire Little House oeuvre, comingled — raw history, books, and shows.

To read or download or print out the newsletter click here.

Target audience? My cousins, Tera and Amber, who lived a state away, but when visiting always accompanied me to the creek across the street to enact Little House sagas.
(I played Ma.)

My sources? People magazine, the paperback Laura: The Life of Laura Ingalls Wilder, my TV synopsis journal (the main relic for this blog), and the Little House books themselves.

The recipes are ripped straight from The Little House Cookbook.

I was aggregating content long before Google, though it’s a bit of bummer that I wasn’t wholly original.

As I revisit this perky publication, a few things are clear:
1) My research citing references to spring in all the books is fairly impressive.
2) I had yet to learn the value of white space.
3) My attempt at creating various fonts (cursive, italics, printing) was admirable.
4) Strawberry the Orangutan does not belong in the same category of “celebrity” as Johnny Cash.

If Melissa Gilbert was about to turn 20, this issue of The Little House Newsletter must have been published in 1984. While other girls were getting their ears pierced, I was hiding out, wielding said markers like machetes and prepping for a journalism career that didn’t quite happen. And yet it really ought to be on my resume even now:
“Publisher, Editor and Printer, The Little House Newsletter.”

________________________________________________________________

From Tracy —

Meanwhile I was growing up in a nice suburban Indianapolis neighborhood miles away from Anne. I did have access to a “greenbelt” and a creek but did not have access to the great pond in Anne’s backyard or the equally Little House nutsy relatives or friends. I’m sure if I had grown up in Anne’s neighborhood I would have been a devoted follower of The Little House Newsletter..