Isaiah
It was the fall of Eighteen-Seventy Nine. Mary Ingalls was fourteen, she was blind from having meningitis, Laura was twelve, Carrie, nine and Grace was two. Caroline felt the familiar sickness that she had the last five times and went to see Doctor Baker. "Congratulations Caroline, I'm happy to tell you that you're expecting another bundle of joy." Caroline smiled through tears. "When will she arrive doctor?" Hiram laughed "Already thinking it's a girl eh? Well she will be here around the first of June." Caroline almost danced and ran all the way home.
That evening, after Grace had been tucked into bed, the older girls were getting ready to start to begin their studies. Carrie was studying her history lesson and Laura was studying her history, reading the lesson allowed so Mary, who hadn't yet began to go to a blind school could listen and remember the lesson. After Charles came in from milking the cow and feeding her and the horses, Caroline told him to sit down, "Girls, I want you to hear this also, I saw Doctor Baker today and he told me we're having an addition to the family, she'll be here about the first of June." Charles laughed his great laugh and the girls smiles were a mile wide. "SSSHH Charles, you'll wake Grace." Caroline told him. Charles was so happy that he got out the fiddle and began to play a song, It was Ma's favorite song "There is a happy land far, far away" They all sang it.
A few weeks later, Caroline told all her friends and Charles told all the fellows at the mill and of course the girls told all the other children at school. Mrs. Oleson was happy for Caroline. "Caroline, I know you'll be happy because I was so happy with my Nellie and Willie when I was expecting them." Caroline was surprised when Harriet gave her a hug and squeezed her hand. As the time flew by, the women threw Caroline a baby shower.
Chapter Two
Caroline received all kinds of nice things from the women, they gave her blankets, knitted with love, clothes for either a boy or girl, gowns, diapers since Grace was still in them, a rattle from Eva Simms, some booties from Harriet and a music box that played a few strains of Brahms Lullaby from Alice Garvey. Caroline was so happy that she cried. "This baby will be so loved by everyone." As predicted, on June fifth, Caroline woke with the familiar pains that she knew were meant to be pains from birth. After taking Grace to Alice Garvey's and Laura and Carrie went to school, Charles left Mary with Caroline and he went for Hiram.
When they arrived, Caroline told him, "This child is on her way doctor." He entered the bedroom and Charles paced back and forth in the kitchen and Mary made some tea for all of them. About ten minutes after Hiram arrived, a babies cry filled the house, Charles teared up as he asked "Is everything okay doc?" Hiram called back to him. "Sure it is, mother and child are doing wonderfully, I just have to bathe the baby before you and Mary can come in." Caroline was also crying from happiness. A few minutes later, Hiram opened the door, "Well come on in here Papa and big sister and see the newest addition to the Ingalls family"
They entered the room as Caroline was cuddling the sweet smelling baby in her arms. Mary was allowed to touch the baby's face gently and she smiled happily, Charles looked at the precious bundle with blue eyes and blond hair. "Well Mama, she looks just like Mary and Grace after they were born, Are we going to name her Sarah or maybe Rachel." Caroline teared up and laughed also. Charles Phillip Ingalls, our son will not be teased by having a girls name." Charles really did cry then, so did Mary and then Caroline. "It's a boy!" they said. Hiram left after making sure the newest addition was healthy. He clapped loudly for the startle reflex and ran his finger across the baby's feet to see if they curled. "He's a healthy baby."
After Laura and Carrie came home and Charles went to fetch Grace, Ma told them all after eating a huge dinner of fried chicken, gravy, green beans and corn with a glass of milk, and feeding the baby his supper, she told the family. "I think I'm going to name the baby Isaiah Robert Ingalls after Isaiah Edwards and Robert Frost." She loved poetry and Robert Frost was her favorite poet. "I hope you don't mind Charles, since our last son was also Charles." He teared up once more, remembering the precious baby they had when Carrie was four Charles Frederick Ingalls. He was sickly from almost the day he was born, pale and he could hardly keep his food down. After switching to cows milk, Freddie as they affectionately called him got a bit better, but suddenly began getting high fevers and then began soiling his diapers severely. The poor baby died suddenly in August of 1885. The family was devastated, often sobbing softly while visiting his tiny grave.
As for Isaiah Robert, he was a chubby healthy baby, he gained weight in his first few months and began nursing hungrily that Doctor Baker started him on cereal at the age of five months, along with mothers milk. His eyes stayed blue, as blue as Grace and Mary's and his hair was just as blond as theirs. Laura and Carrie fought to see who would take him for walks outside and Grace adored her baby brother. Mary loved this precious baby too, even thought she couldn't see, she could expertly diaper him and make sure the pins didn't stick his hips. Caroline and Charles had him baptized at church, just like they had all the girls baptized and also baby Freddie when he was alive.
Chapter Three
Time passed and Isaiah had his first birthday. Caroline baked him a cake, as she done all her children on their birthdays and the family gathered around him and his cake and they sang "For He's A Jolly Good Fellow" He smiled and squealed with delight as he took his first bite of the sweet cake and took a sip of milk from his cup. Charles had even got a special treat for the entire family. He went to town and bought a block of ice and made ice cream and the family ate it with the cake, Isaiah shivered, then smiled as he swallowed his first taste of vanilla ice cream. Grace said "I want more too Ma." That afternoon, Isaiah took his first steps, they all clapped and gave him kisses.
By the time Isaiah was fifteen months old, he was talking, he could say "Papa, Mama, cracker, Mary, Laura, Carrie, Grace, Kitty, after their new cat they found mewing at the door. And Bandit, the dog that adopted them when Grace was a baby. Mary went to her school for the blind in Iowa, and learned Braille and found her first real love after John Edwards, his name was Adam Kendall and he was also blind, he became blind after falling and hitting his head on a rock. They went to see her and she let them meet Adam, he was a handsome young man with brown hair and blue eyes. It was love at first meeting for the sixteen-year-old and the shy seventeen-year-old.
One afternoon, Isaiah woke crying from a fever and Caroline rushed him into town, Hiram reassured her "Caroline, Isaiah has chicken pox, just like Grace and Carrie did when they were around two or three, believe me there is nothing going to happen to this little boy as long as I'm around. The entire town adored Isaiah, with his sweet smile that had dimples and he was such a good tempered little fellow also. He had began charming the ladies by blowing kisses at them at age ten months and he could wave goodbye at eleven months. Carrie and Grace put him on Bandit one afternoon to see if he could ride on the dog's back, but Bandit just sat down. Isaiah cried because he really wanted to ride a horse like his sisters could.
When he was four, Charles put him on Sam, one of the horses they had, he told him "Hold on son!" Isaiah chuckled as the horse walked around and around "Giddy up Sam!" the little boy said. By that time, Mary and Adam had gotten married and were now living in Rochester Minnesota. Adam had tripped and fell on a box and was knocked unconscious and when he awoke, he could see again. He and Mary moved from Mankato to Rochester so Adam could complete is attorney career. Mary had given birth to a baby boy named Adam Jr and also Harriet Oleson had become a grandmother when Nellie married a Jewish man named Isaac Cohen who had changed his name to Percival Dalton. The young couple soon became parents to twins, a boy named Benjamin and a girl named Jennifer. They moved to New York after Percival's father Benjamin Cohen passed away.
Isaiah began school and his big sister Laura was his teacher, she met and married a young man named Almanzo Wilder, he had brown hair and blue eyes and was ten years older than she, but Charles gave her and Almanzo his blessing. On December 5th 1886,when Laura was nineteen, Carrie was sixteen, Grace was nine and Isaiah was seven, Laura gave birth to Rose. Her best friend Mary Power, who had moved to town a few years earlier mother helped bring the baby into the world. Mrs. Power was a jolly Irish woman with an Irish accent called the baby "A wee girl!". The entire family came to see this beautiful baby, Almanzo told them "You don't see a rose in December and that's what we wanted to name her." Isaiah asked him. "Manzo, as he called his brother-in-law if I wash my hands really well and put on some gloves, can I hold Rose?" Almanzo laughed "Why of course you can son!"
Chapter Four
A year and a half later, Laura gave birth to another baby, this baby was a boy, he was beautiful as his sister, but the poor baby died after being on the earth a week. They didn't think of a name for the precious baby so they had to put Our Angel, Baby Boy Wilder July 15- 22 1888. Laura somehow knew that this wee babe as Mrs. Power called him just like she called Rose wouldn't make it, he nursed weakly and his cry was also weak, plus Doctor Baker had done the startle reflex on him as he had done Isaiah and Rose and he didn't react to them.
Laura and Rose came to visit the family one afternoon in August, they stayed a while then Laura told Ma, "I have to get home to make some bread for tonight Ma, we'll bring you a loaf too." Soon after they heard the devastating news. Laura had put some kindling in the stove to heat it but it wouldn't stay lit and as she was putting some hay in it, the sparks came out and set the dry kitchen floor on fire, Laura grabbed Rose and a bread platter that she and Almanzo had ordered from a Sears and Roebuck catalog that said Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread and ran out of the house to try to get to the well to fill a bucket with water. But it was too late, the wind from the open window spread the fire and their little house burned to the ground. All Laura could do is hold her daughter and sob.
Almanzo, Laura and Rose temporarily moved into the Ingalls house. With Carrie married to a kind man named Albert Swansea she had moved to the Black Hills and was a mother to the widower's two children, a daughter named Mary and a son named Joseph. Grace was eleven and Isaiah nine. The family loved having the Wilders live with them and were unhappy when they bought a house that had once belonged to the Edwards family, after Jonathan and Alice Garvey had moved to Dodge Center, a town about twenty-five miles away. As the Wilders moved, they were happy.
Time passed and Grace turned eighteen and met and married a young man named Nathan Dow, They couldn't have children, which devastated them, but they considered adopting a child, they finally adopted a baby girl they named Nancy Suzanne. Isaiah turned eighteen and married a sweet young girl from town named Rebecca Powell, they became parents of a sweet baby boy they named Frederick William Ingalls. Isaiah heard stories of his brother that died and decided to honor his name by naming their son and calling him Freddie. This baby Freddie was strong and after he turned fifteen months, they gave Charles and Caroline a new granddaughter they named Rachel Elizabeth.