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Permission to publish material from the Rose Wilder Lane and Virginia Brastow correspondence must be obtained from the
These materials were donated to USU Special Collections and Archives in 2025 by David Roy Bradford, on behalf of his mother, Elaine Piper Bradford.
These materials are arranged into two series: I. Correspondence, in chronological sequence; and II. Other materials
30 letters from Rose Wilder Lane to Virginia Brastow dating from 1933 to 1952. Most letters center on their shared love of literature, with rich commentary relating to current political theories and minor "literary gossip."
From Rocky Ridge Farm, Mansfield, Missouri. Mentions Dorothy and Sinclair Lewis, [Lincoln] Steffens, conditions in Germany
From Rocky Ridge Farm. Mentions her fondness for pigs, the intelligence of plants, politics and government, eugenics, the Burbanks, laissez-faire, Accident vs. Intelligence, adaptation of animals, a personal story about scaring a young swallow chick in Albania
From Rocky Ridge Farm. Mentions her Saturday Evening Post story "Thankless Child," editor [Edward J.] O'Brien, Bessie Breuer, Kathleen Norris' accounts of Bruno Hauptmann trial/Lindbergh baby abduction; Jimmy Sheehan, Edith Wharton
From Rocky Ridge Farm, described in vivid detail. Mentions the success of her mother's first books, Marie Meloney, Sinclair Lewis, Mark Twain, Edith Wharton, Willa Cather, Ernest Hemingway, Thomas Wolfe, death of Fremont Older, Eve Chapell, Berta and Elmer Hader, her belief in Hauptmann's innocence, the Pictorial magazine, Ruth Suckow, H.G. Wells, Zelma Brandt, Crane Wilbur
Handwritten from the English Inn in Hollister, Missouri. Mentions Louis Adamic, American crowds, the masses, the "good taste" of Americans as a whole
From the English Inn, incomplete letter. Mentions Edith Wharton's "Backward Glance"
From Rocky Ridge Farm. Mentions Albania, her preference for city life, Freida Lawrence, recipe for pie crust
From Rocky Ridge Farm. Mentions writing stories for McBride, Ernestine short story book, false teeth, long workdays, Corinne Murray working a Relief Job, surplus commodities
From Rocky Ridge Farm. Mentions chain letters, H.G. Wells' Autobiography, Rebecca West, Bessie Beatty, Louis Stellman, Corinne Murray, government assistance programs, son John's upcoming 16th birthday party, Yeats "Winding Stair," Anthony Adverse, Charles Laughton in "Ruggles of Red Gap," Al Jolson's singing
No location listed. Mentions her dislike of Roosevelt, medievalism, Americanization, Mussolini and Hitler giving life and spark back to Europe, contrasted with Americans' freedoms providing life and energy, capitalism, lists Roosevelt's failures, John's birthday party
From Rocky Ridge Farm. Mentions Virginia writing for the New York Post, W. Somerset Maugham's "Cakes and Ale"
From Rocky Ridge Farm. Mentions own article in Saturday Evening Post, her family's disinterest for her writing, "Moon and Sixpence," Rolf Pielke, Ruth Robertson, Roosevelt as a dictator and Medievalist, Gaugin's letters, hair going gray, lack of personal snapshots
From Rocky Ridge Farm. Mentions Mabel Luhan, Nina Wilcox Putnam, evolution, humanitarianism vs. eugenics, [Aldous] Huxley's "Brave New World," reviewing proofs of "Old Home Town"
From Rocky Ridge Farm. Encourages Virginia to write and offers detailed techniques, mentions her upcoming trip to Columbia, Missouri, publication of "Old Home Town," Ruth [Robertson]-Rolf [Pielka] dinner
From the Hotel Tiger, Columbia, Missouri. Mentions buying a new car, Garet Garrett (once editor of the New York Tribune)
From Tiger Hotel. Mentions release of "Old Home Town" and requests Virginia save any reviews she sees, money troubles, clipping on [James] Warburg's book on Roosevelt, sincerity
From The Tiger (A Sweet Hotel). Laments the writer's block affecting her progress on the Missouri book. Outlines the early French history of Missouri.
From the Tiger Hotel. Mentions individualism, communism, industrialization, authoritarianism
Missing first page? Recounts the details of meeting and adopting sons John and Al.
From the Tiger Hotel. Mentions Roosevelt's Americanism and the New Deal, laments Virginia's disinterest in political theory, claims Islam as her religion, mentions her Albanian son Rexh's engagement, dreams about returning to Albania to retire
From the Tiger Hotel. Mentions Montgomery Ward return policy, "Credo," Evelyn Wells, trip to Mansfield, state of education, bourgeois morality
From the Tiger Hotel. Mentions death of friend Grant [Carpenter], homosexuality, Saturday Evening Post article "Horse and Buggy Days"
From the Tiger Hotel. Mentions Al's romance, unsold story, John's college plans, upcoming story in Lady's Home Journal about Albanian son Rexh
No location listed. Handwritten letter congratulates Virginia on making it home (San Francisco), mentions boys are well in Europe
From Tiger Hotel. Date includes "2:30 AM." Shares a charming French Ozark folksong she found while researching Missouri
From the Grosvenor Hotel, New York City. Mentions ongoing struggle with "this damn long story," Charles Caldwell Dobie, Genevieve Parkhurst, Hortense Russell, Georgia Long, wishing for a haircut and a hat
From Danbury, Connecticut. Missing final page(s). Mentions [Arthur] Koestler, William Carlos Williams, Dorothy Thompson, Josef Bard, Hal Lewis, [William] Faulkner,
From Danbury. Mentions Kopf paintings, Koestler, "[The Revolt of] Mamie [Stover]," weather, new local fire engine
From Danbury. Missing final page(s). Mentions her mother, "The Argonauts," Koestler, Churchill
From Danbury. Mentions religion, science, French Revolution, experiences with Isabel Paterson, Ernestine Evans, Bessie Beatty, Katherine Brush, "The Daughter of Time," "The Dark Moment," "Let It Come Down"
From Danbury. Mentions John Fischer, [Frances and Richard] Lockridge, Catholics, interplanetary travel
Missing first 2 pages. Mentions "Don't Touch Me," Ayn Rand, list of novels she is willing to send Virginia, her refusal to be interviewed for a Profile in the New Yorker, the Wandering Jew
Possibly part of a draft of Virginia's sent to Lane for comment, who then returned it.
Relates to the claim of William Holtz that Rose Wilder Lane was the ghostwriter of the Little House on the Prairie books.
Traces how the letters came to be donated to USU Special Collections and Archives.