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Rocky Ridge Farm
The Birthplace of the Little House Books
By Sue Marquette Poremba
Before we took our tour of the house, we watched a short video in a small theater next door to the museum building. The story told Laura's history and included a recording of her voice.
The house tour is only of the first floor, starting with the kitchen. The tour guide told us that everything looks as it did the day Laura was taken to the hospital shortly before her death in 1957. In the parlor, the tour guide pointed out a clock – the same clock that Almanzo gave Laura as a gift during their first year together, still keeping perfect time. We then passed into the bedroom Laura and Almanzo shared, at least in their later years. We saw the space that was Laura's writing area and the desk where she wrote her books, where her pencils and paper still sit, as if she will be coming back to write.
Another room that we visited was called the music room. The showpiece to the room is an organ. It is not, the tour guide tells us, Mary's organ, the one that Laura helped to buy in These Happy Golden Years (Harper Collins, 1953).