Today is the 127th anniversary of the day Almanzo and Laura became husband and wife. And the day that Almanzo agreed not to expect Laura to obey him. 🙂
They were married for over sixty years and shared, not only a partnership of marriage, but also of building Rocky Ridge and running their farm together.
Share (in the comments below) … memories, thoughts, wishes!
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Happy anniversary Laura and Manly!!! I am only 13, and have only read These Happy Golden Years for the first time 1 month ago, but I am on my 36th time reading it! I don’t know if I could name my favorite memory; because I love them all, but one of them is their engagement. (But then again, everyone loves that part, right?) I wrote this date on all of my friend’s calanders, and have been driving them crazy about today! But then again, it is my role model’s anniversary! I call it, LIWAW day! Again, Happy anniversary!
I love the quiet portrait of Laura and Almanzo’s marriage that comes through in WEST FROM HOME. “Manly Dear,” she writes in an early letter, “I wish you were here. Half the fun I lose because I am all the time wishing for you.” They had been married thirty years.
Much has been made of the fact that Laura was quick and sharp whereas Almanzo was quiet and meditative, but if you look at the portraits of Almanzo written by both his wife (in FARMER BOY) and his daughter (in FREE LAND), you can see he was far from hen-pecked. He was mild-tempered but determined. As Laura called him in her columns, he was The Man of the Place.
I love how much they shared: they were partners in every sense. From the giddy excitements of San Francisco, Laura writes home to her dear Manly, “Have you turned the hogs into the orchard yet, and did they like it?”
I ordered my copy of The Legacy of LIW DVD and it arrived on Laura and Almanzo’s wedding anniversary. Just a fun little tidbit.
That was a long time to be marrried in those years..Tomorrow my husband and I would have been married 64 years..and I have a lot to be thankful for..Shirley
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