The life and adventures of the Ingalls family in the nineteenth century American Midwest.

A long-running drama based on the "Little House" book series by Laura Ingalls Wilder follows the lives of the simple, farming Ingalls family: Charles, Caroline, Mary, Laura, Carrie, Grace, and the later adopted Albert, James, and Cassandra, who settle into a quaint little house on the banks of Plum Creek near the small town of Walnut Grove, Minnesota during the late 1800s. Often narrated by Laura, the series follows her simple farm upbringing from her childhood until her adulthood with Almanzo Wilder with whom she starts a family of her own. While the series is based on the "Little House" book series (and thus the real life of author Laura Ingalls Wilder), it is a very loose adaptation, with mostly only key events and elements of fact surviving the transition from book to TV series, the most important being Mary's eventual blindness, and Laura's future. Several other fictitious (some factual) characters make up the friendly town of Walnut Grove, including teacher Miss Beadle (succeeded by two other teachers, then Laura, then Etta Plum), Dr. Hiram Baker, Rev. Robert Alden, Mr. Hanson (of the Hanson lumber mill), and the well-to-do Olesons, owners of the local mercantile, and also the primary rivals of the Ingalls family (except the Oleson patriarch). Family friends include the Edwards, Garveys, and Carters, who, in the final season, move into the Ingalls' little house.—Ondre Lombard <olombard@lombard.dialup.cyberverse.com>