PQ Week 4 -- Our Laura Ingalls Wilder Forum

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Date Posted: 21:57:44 04/27/03 Sun
Author: Ann
Subject: PQ Week 4

Show started out with the two homesteading couples at some sort of (modern) celebration in the nearby town. There seems to be more contact with other allowed than in Frontier House. The homesteaders have "hired" people to break up the sod, and then cut the hay, using a horse and old-fashioned tools from that era. Also, a religious group (sort of like Mennonites, but it was a different name, which I don't remember) has started helping out a lot. The older couple started going to this group's church, each Sunday, and then these people started coming over every day to help, and they brought food and everything. The younger homesteaders didn't like this, and thought it was not in keeping with the spirit of the project. I had to agree with them. The whole point, to me, was to see how these two couples would fare.
The older couple's house was completed. Their house is bigger and has a stove, where they and the younger couple will do their cooking. Older couple's kids (youngest is 15 oldest 25 or so) came for a visit.
Then there was a fire which burned the barn and severely injured the hog they'd planned to butcher in the winter. The hog had to be shot, and since they were not prepared to butcher it, had no equipment yet to do so, had to just bury it.
The shows producers came to talk to the two couples to see if they had any problems. At first no one would say anything, then the older woman said she and the younger woman were having "issues" but wouldn't specify. The younger woman then got up (appearing to be very upset) and left for a few minutes. Finally it came out that the younger couple was complaining about all the people from the religious group coming and helping so much with the work and providing so much food.
The older couple said they were very social people and wanted to continue the interaction with these people. My feeling was if they were so social, why volunteer to be homesteaders for a whole year!
The producers then told the older couple that while people would have visited and helped each other back then, it would not have been every day or even every week and said it would have to be cut back to very occasionally. The older couple didn't look too happy, but they agreed.
Later, the younger couple talked into their cam recorder and said while they were disappointed that it looked as if they weren't going to be close friends with the older couple, that they would just accept that and work with them.
I think the pairing of total strangers having to share so much really is the problem. In real life, two couples who were not related, or not very close to begin with, would not have met up somewhere and tried to homestead together.
In Frontier House, each family had their own home and settlement, and there was some interaction, but not a lot, and I think that's more the way it would have been.

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Replies:

[> Re: PQ Week 4 -- Anne, 02:39:44 05/01/03 Thu

Hi Ann,

After reading what happened in week 4 - I feel that it is strange how so much interaction with others was allowed. I wonder why the producers of the show allowed this in the first place?? I agree with the younger couple on that point.

That is so sad about the poor hog getting badly burned. Will they go hungry without that hog now, when the winter comes, since they were planning to butcher it then? Personally, I don't think I would be up to the butchering process and all that goes with it. I am happy for Woolworths or my local butchers to pack it up all nicely for me so all I need do is purchase it and then cook it!

Do the men also seem to have a problem with each other or is it only the women?? The couple seem vastly different. I wish I could have a look at them - do you know of a website Ann, or I guess since this series is from a while ago there is no website available now.

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[> [> Re: PQ Week 4 -- Ann, 16:44:51 05/01/03 Thu

I couldn't find anything with pictures, even on the Oregon pbs site. The older man looks a little like the real Pa, without the beard. The older woman looks a little like a matronly Dyan Cannon, if you're familiar with her. Plump, round face, blondish hair, but not real light.
The younger man is quite fair, blonde hair, blue eyes, almost Scandanavian looking. His wife reminds me a little of Holly Hunter. She's short, brown hair, not beautiful, but nice face. Has a very determined attitude.
The men have their differences, but being men, they don't say as much or let it get to them. Women need company more than men, I think, so that's probably part of it.
The women dress in plaid shirts and denim coveralls sometimes. Those clothes were around back then, but I wonder if women wore them. Maybe they did in such an isolated homesteading situation.
I don't know why the producers let the "outsiders" come in as often as they did for as long as they did. There's a lot more outside help in general, as with hiring people to do break up the soil and cut the hay. Maybe it's because these people are really going to spend the winter there, whereas in Frontier House it was for 5 months and then they were judged on how well they might have done through the winter if they had stayed.

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