Charles Frederick Ingalls was the younger brother of famed author Laura Ingalls Wilder. Laura was an American writer known for The Little House on the Prairie series of children’s books. The books were based on her childhood in a settler and pioneer family.
Charles Frederick Ingalls’ Family
Charles Frederick Ingalls was born on November 1, 1875, in Walnut Grove (Redwood County) Minnesota. He was the fourth of 5 children of Charles Phillip Ingalls and Caroline Lake (née Quiner) Ingalls. His father was an American pioneer, farmer, government official, musician, and carpenter. Frederick died nine months later on August 27, 1876, because of diarrhea.
Ingalls were descendants of the Delano family, the ancestral family of U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. One paternal ancestor, Edmund Ingalls, from Skirbeck, Lincolnshire, England, emigrated to America, settling in Lynn, Massachusetts. Frederick’s eldest sister, Mary Amelia, born in 1865, was born blind. Sisters Caroline Celestia (Carrie) and Grace Ingalls were born in 1870 and 1877 respectively. Their sister, Laura Ingalls Wilder, was born on February 7, 1867, and rose to stardom and became a successful author. Laura was the 7th great-granddaughter of the Mayflower passenger Richard Warren. She was a third cousin, once removed, of U.S. President and Civil War General Ulysses S. Grant.
Laura’s teaching career ended when she married Almanzo Wilder on August 25, 1885, in De Smet, South Dakota. On December 5, 1886, she gave birth to her daughter, Rose. Laura died at home in her sleep on February 10, 1957, three days after her 90th birthday. Laura’s father, Charles Phillip died on June 8, 1902, of cardiovascular disease, at the age of 66.
Charles Frederick Ingalls’ Net Worth
Charles Frederick Ingalls is known to the world as the brother of the legendary writer and autobiographer, Laura Ingalls Wilder. Laura was one of the most successful and one of the richest autobiographers. The Little House on the Prairie books comprise a series of American children’s novels written by her. The stories are based on her childhood and adolescence in the American Midwest between 1870 and 1894.
Laura was five times a runner-up for the annual Newbery Medal, the premier American Library Association (ALA) book award for children’s literature. In 1954, the ALA inaugurated a lifetime achievement award for children’s writers and illustrators, named for Laura, of which she was the first recipient. Eight of her novels were completed by Wilder, and published by Harper & Brothers in the 1930s and 1940s, during her lifetime.
The Little House books have been adapted for stage or screen more than once, most successfully as the American television series Little House on the Prairie, which ran from 1974 to 1983. Time ranks the Little House series as 22 out of 100 of the “100 Best Young Adult Books of All Time.” Five of the Little House books have been Honor Books for the Newbery Medal. Today, the estimated worth of the Little House fortune is $100 million.