The Waltons vs. Little House on the Prairie

[nedandres]

Rose tried to overedit her mother, but Laura pushed back. She was NO pushover!

[avaleewalton]

I've been rewatching Little House:

It is so dramatic 😂
My mom and I joke about how it sometimes becomes the Charles Ingalls show.
Albert has quickly become my favourite character on the show. I love his personality and all his schemes.
Alice Garvey's death was HORRIFYING! She was my second favourite character and I was in bits 😭😭❤️

The Waltons is still my favourite, but it's been lovely revisiting my childhood ❤️

[JessicaGirlSpy]

May 28, 2021 16:59:28 GMT -5 avaleewalton said:

I've been rewatching Little House:

It is so dramatic 😂
My mom and I joke about how it sometimes becomes the Charles Ingalls show.
Albert has quickly become my favourite character on the show. I love his personality and all his schemes.
Alice Garvey's death was HORRIFYING! She was my second favourite character and I was in bits 😭😭❤️

The Waltons is still my favourite, but it's been lovely revisiting my childhood ❤️

I love the Waltons but I do enjoy Little House.  Albert is certainly an entertaining character. Sort of a combination of Tom Sawyer,Huck Finn, Artful Dodger and perhaps Holden Caulfield.

Alice Garvey's death was  horrifying. It's probably one of the most horrifying deaths on TV or movie that I have seen ( Janet Leigh taking a shower) I refuse to rewatch that Little House episode again.

[carol]

Oct 2, 2020 22:37:21 GMT -5 dayton3 said:

The Waltons and Little House on the Prairie do have some similarities in that both series were loosely based on books that were equally loosely based on real events.    

So they were both "loosely based"...twice removed.   In regards to the Little House on the Prairie books there is also the fact that people are not even sure how much was actually written by Laura Ingalls Wilder and how much was written by her daughter Rose based on accounts and memories years after the fact and to reflect Rose's extreme political views (extreme libertarianism).   

And you never read even the briefest mention of Charles Ingalls possible role in murdering a family of serial killers. 

Because it is likely that Pa never knew the Bender family let alone was involved in their disappearance.

There were Kate Bender and two men, her brothers, in the family and their tavern was the only place for travelers to stop on the road south from Independence. People disappeared on that road. Leaving Independence and going south they were never heard of again. It was thought they were killed by Indians but no bodies were ever found.

Then it was noticed that the Benders' garden was always freshly plowed but never planted. People wondered. And then a man came from the east looking for his brother, who was missing.

… In the cellar underneath was the body of a man whose head had been crushed by the hammer. It appeared that he had been seated at the table back to the curtain and had been struck from behind it. A grave was partly dug in the garden with a shovel close by. The posse searched the garden and dug up human bones and bodies. One body was that of a little girl who had been buried alive with her murdered parents. The garden was truly a grave-yard kept plowed so it would show no signs. The night of the day the bodies were found a neighbor rode up to our house and talked earnestly with Pa. Pa took his rifle down from its place over the door and said to Ma, "The vigilantes are called out." Then he saddled a horse and rode away with the neighbor. It was late the next day when he came back and he never told us where he had been. For several years there was more or less a hunt for the Benders and reports that they had been seen here or there. At such times Pa always said in a strange tone of finality, "They will never be found."

Laura Ingalls Wilder told this story in the context of explaining how the published stories about her childhood differed from the reality. She deliberately left out some things, she explained, because she wasn't trying to tell a 100% un-edited history. She was writing a children's book. Serial killers murdered by vigilantes doesn't make for great children's literature.

Which makes sense … except that there's no way Pa Ingalls could have been involved in the vigilante justice meted out on the Benders. As blogger and literature Ph.D. candidate Kate points out at the Condensery, the Benders weren't actually exposed until 1873. This was two years after the Ingalls family left Kansas.


boingboing.net/2012/08/20/little-house-on-the-prairie-s.html


There are also historical records that prove that the Ingalls family left Kansas well before the Bender's arrived

[carol]

May 28, 2021 16:59:28 GMT -5 avaleewalton said:

I've been rewatching Little House:

It is so dramatic 😂
My mom and I joke about how it sometimes becomes the Charles Ingalls show.
Albert has quickly become my favourite character on the show. I love his personality and all his schemes.
Alice Garvey's death was HORRIFYING! She was my second favourite character and I was in bits 😭😭❤️

The Waltons is still my favourite, but it's been lovely revisiting my childhood ❤️

I hate the episode with the blind school fire. The scene with Alice and the baby in the window of the burning building scared the crap out of me when I saw it during the original run. It still creeps me out. And Mary yelling My baby! My baby! all through the second half gets on my nerves. I just can't watch that episode

[Deleted]

May 28, 2021 22:36:35 GMT -5 carol said:

Oct 2, 2020 22:37:21 GMT -5 dayton3 said:

The Waltons and Little House on the Prairie do have some similarities in that both series were loosely based on books that were equally loosely based on real events.    

So they were both "loosely based"...twice removed.   In regards to the Little House on the Prairie books there is also the fact that people are not even sure how much was actually written by Laura Ingalls Wilder and how much was written by her daughter Rose based on accounts and memories years after the fact and to reflect Rose's extreme political views (extreme libertarianism).   

And you never read even the briefest mention of Charles Ingalls possible role in murdering a family of serial killers. 

Because it is likely that Pa never knew the Bender family let alone was involved in their disappearance.

There were Kate Bender and two men, her brothers, in the family and their tavern was the only place for travelers to stop on the road south from Independence. People disappeared on that road. Leaving Independence and going south they were never heard of again. It was thought they were killed by Indians but no bodies were ever found.

Then it was noticed that the Benders' garden was always freshly plowed but never planted. People wondered. And then a man came from the east looking for his brother, who was missing.

… In the cellar underneath was the body of a man whose head had been crushed by the hammer. It appeared that he had been seated at the table back to the curtain and had been struck from behind it. A grave was partly dug in the garden with a shovel close by. The posse searched the garden and dug up human bones and bodies. One body was that of a little girl who had been buried alive with her murdered parents. The garden was truly a grave-yard kept plowed so it would show no signs. The night of the day the bodies were found a neighbor rode up to our house and talked earnestly with Pa. Pa took his rifle down from its place over the door and said to Ma, "The vigilantes are called out." Then he saddled a horse and rode away with the neighbor. It was late the next day when he came back and he never told us where he had been. For several years there was more or less a hunt for the Benders and reports that they had been seen here or there. At such times Pa always said in a strange tone of finality, "They will never be found."

Laura Ingalls Wilder told this story in the context of explaining how the published stories about her childhood differed from the reality. She deliberately left out some things, she explained, because she wasn't trying to tell a 100% un-edited history. She was writing a children's book. Serial killers murdered by vigilantes doesn't make for great children's literature.

Which makes sense … except that there's no way Pa Ingalls could have been involved in the vigilante justice meted out on the Benders. As blogger and literature Ph.D. candidate Kate points out at the Condensery, the Benders weren't actually exposed until 1873. This was two years after the Ingalls family left Kansas.


boingboing.net/2012/08/20/little-house-on-the-prairie-s.html


There are also historical records that prove that the Ingalls family left Kansas well before the Bender's arrived

The Big Valley has a great episode on the Benders. Its Nick that almost becomes their next victim. Its in season 3, episode 6 and titled Ladykiller.

"An innkeeper's pretty daughter is the bait used to rob and kill visitors. Nick unsuspectingly falls in love with her."

[dayton3]

Makes you wonder how many mass murderers and serial killers there were on the prowl  in ages past.     IIRC,  a supporter of Joan of Arc is known to have murdered dozens,  possibly hundreds of young boys if that tells you anything. 

But I think American history of serial killers pretty much begins with that guy who had the infamous "murder house" in Chicago near the Chicago Worlds Fair. 

[pinkbaker07]

May 28, 2021 22:36:35 GMT -5 carol said:

Oct 2, 2020 22:37:21 GMT -5 dayton3 said:

The Waltons and Little House on the Prairie do have some similarities in that both series were loosely based on books that were equally loosely based on real events.    

So they were both "loosely based"...twice removed.   In regards to the Little House on the Prairie books there is also the fact that people are not even sure how much was actually written by Laura Ingalls Wilder and how much was written by her daughter Rose based on accounts and memories years after the fact and to reflect Rose's extreme political views (extreme libertarianism).   

And you never read even the briefest mention of Charles Ingalls possible role in murdering a family of serial killers. 

Because it is likely that Pa never knew the Bender family let alone was involved in their disappearance.

There were Kate Bender and two men, her brothers, in the family and their tavern was the only place for travelers to stop on the road south from Independence. People disappeared on that road. Leaving Independence and going south they were never heard of again. It was thought they were killed by Indians but no bodies were ever found.

Then it was noticed that the Benders' garden was always freshly plowed but never planted. People wondered. And then a man came from the east looking for his brother, who was missing.

… In the cellar underneath was the body of a man whose head had been crushed by the hammer. It appeared that he had been seated at the table back to the curtain and had been struck from behind it. A grave was partly dug in the garden with a shovel close by. The posse searched the garden and dug up human bones and bodies. One body was that of a little girl who had been buried alive with her murdered parents. The garden was truly a grave-yard kept plowed so it would show no signs. The night of the day the bodies were found a neighbor rode up to our house and talked earnestly with Pa. Pa took his rifle down from its place over the door and said to Ma, "The vigilantes are called out." Then he saddled a horse and rode away with the neighbor. It was late the next day when he came back and he never told us where he had been. For several years there was more or less a hunt for the Benders and reports that they had been seen here or there. At such times Pa always said in a strange tone of finality, "They will never be found."

Laura Ingalls Wilder told this story in the context of explaining how the published stories about her childhood differed from the reality. She deliberately left out some things, she explained, because she wasn't trying to tell a 100% un-edited history. She was writing a children's book. Serial killers murdered by vigilantes doesn't make for great children's literature.

Which makes sense … except that there's no way Pa Ingalls could have been involved in the vigilante justice meted out on the Benders. As blogger and literature Ph.D. candidate Kate points out at the Condensery, the Benders weren't actually exposed until 1873. This was two years after the Ingalls family left Kansas.


boingboing.net/2012/08/20/little-house-on-the-prairie-s.html


There are also historical records that prove that the Ingalls family left Kansas well before the Bender's arrived

I don't know, Charles seemed to be a pacifist to me, not sure if he'd get involved