Epilogue – Definition:  a conclusion, comment, postscript, supplement, addendum, postlude, denouement, swan song, peroration.  
Does it have to be over?  I would rather it not.  Every time I picked up Prairie Fires I was engaged and interested, much like I am with the Little House books. 
Caroline Fraser mentions the golden thread that runs through the books.  It runs through us too, the people captured by these pioneer tales. Those of us whose devotion to Laura’s legacy brings us to the Laurapalooza conference biannually, which Caroline kindly mentions in her epilogue. 
She gives mention to the homesites, which we yearn to visit, and upon each return, it feels somewhat like a pilgrimage.   
She wants us to remember that Laura was a REAL person.  There was a fictional Laura, and a dozen different versions of the walking talking breathing human, who navigated through nine decades of life.  
The daughter, wife, mother, club woman, farmer, housekeeper, traveler, friend, and  writer, who didn’t always wildly succeed in all her endeavors.  She was unfailingly human, just like the rest of us. She lived a simple life, a life of hardship and struggle, grief and triumph.  It was her observations of those that resonates with her readers.  
Sorry Television show fans, but Caroline concludes, and I concur, that the Little House world belongs to the readers.  We can read the stories over and over, never tiring of them, and every tidbit of factual info we can glean about the real people standing behind the book characters seems like gold.  
I wish Laura could have commented in the epilogue of Prairie Fires.  Would she have corrected any errors or misconceptions?  Errors in her fiction never bothered her.  She could have shared how it felt to have her memory memorialized  with a Pulitzer  prize winning biography.  
I would like to think she would be proud that she had such an impact on so many.    
Caroline deserves all the accolades she has won.  Her research is painstaking and inspiring to those of us touched by her work.  With a nod to Kevin Pearce’s observation of Caroline’s vocabulary, I will point out three new words I had to look up when reading the epilogue. 
1. Jeremiad – Definition: a long, mournful complaint or lamentation; a list of woes decrying the downfall of morality or society
“Lane wanted to tie the books ever closer to the American jeremiad that she and Isabel Patterson and Ayn Rand had preached.”
*Oh Rose, I guess so.  
2.  Nostrum – Definition: a pet scheme or favorite remedy, especially one for bringing about some social or political reform or improvement.  An ineffective medicine prepared by an unqualified person.  
“The nostrum is treated as if it constitutes a commandment: “ It is still best to be honest and truthful; to make the most of what we have; to be happy with the simple pleasures and to be cheerful and have courage when things go wrong.   
“during tough times, populist nostrums gain favor”
 
*Not sure I agree.  I suspect Laura was just sharing a bit of wisdom she gleaned over decades of surviving the perils in her lifetime.  
3.  Monoculture – Definition: the cultivation of a single crop in a given area.
“Monoculture has always been with us, and it has always been the model that pays.”
“the replacement of natural forest with pine monoculture”
 *Things we wish were not so, but they are.  
Years ago, while on a mother daughter trip to DeSmet, we were browsing through the newly opened museum in the Memorial Society, and we came across a dress form wearing a nightgown. As I gazed at it ruffly whiteness, I could not help but wonder what Laura would have thought of her devotees viewing her nightwear.  Would she chuckle? Be horrified?  Wonder at our sanity?  One can only imagine.  
Speaking as one of the faithful:  anything at all, Laura, anything at all.  Thank you.