When looking at the title of this chapter, the beginning pages of this chapter meshed in my brain to make sense, most of the rest of the chapter made me look at the work absent in a different light.  In the beginning we learned how Laura felt about the loss of her mother and the longing for her childhood.  As we all know she wrote to her Aunt Martha to ask her about what her and Caroline’s childhood was like, which would become the bones of her writing the Little House stories. 
The majority of the rest of the chapter was spent telling us about Rose’s adventures, her relationship and life choices.  I will admit, Rose is not my favorite person, but she led a very obscure life, which is most cases meant she was absent from her parents a great deal of the time.  One of the most intriguing things that this chapter brought to light for me is the fact that Laura always saw Rose still as a child and how Rose treated her parents, but primarily her mother, as a child. 
Rose traveled extensively meeting people from all over, having adventures and collecting stories.  She loved her time in Albania and went back there many times.  She kept diaries that turned into published material, that she earned money for.  During this time she also suffered from severe depression.  She ended a long standing relationship with her partner Guy Moyston, an Associated Press reporter whom her parents were quite fond of and approved. 
The most interesting part of this chapter to me was Rose’s obsession with the stock market and her gifting her parents $500 per year, even when she could clearly not afford to do so sometimes.  She drank the koolaid per se and convinced her parents that the stock market was a sure bet, which it was not.  In my mind she used the money to show her parents how successful she was, even though for the most part they could take care of themselves.  Manly and Bess still continued to frugal manner.
Rose very much blows in the wind, going where she wants, when she wants.  She is a free spirit and given her mother’s free spirit, it has always intrigued me as to the why they did not get along better and were not close.  Is it a case of being too alike?  Resentment and fear of failure?  I’m thankful my mother and I are not like Rose and Laura.  Sometimes I do wish I had Rose’s sense of adventure, which is one of the things I admire most about her.