`Little House' Royalties At Issue In Lawsuit

MANSFIELD, Mo. - In this remote prairie town in southern Missouri there stands a little library with a leaky roof, jammed floor to ceiling with books, magazines and videotapes.

The Laura Ingalls Wilder Library, as simple and down home as the places described in Wilder's books, seems a fitting tribute to the woman who wrote about life in the rugged pioneering days.

But the author's last wishes, as set out in her will, have put the little library into a tangle that would leave even Ma and Pa Ingalls scratching their heads.

The will grants the library all proceeds from Wilder's literary estate after the death of her daughter, journalist Rose Wilder Lane. But Lane, who died with no children or surviving husband in 1968, left her estate to a friend instead.

Since Wilder's death in 1957, the library claims it has received only one check from the publisher for $28,000 - a mere fraction of the estimated millions earned from the "Little House" children's series, one of the most popular of all time.

Noting that the money would go a long way in getting a new roof and expanding the library - a converted medical clinic the size of a double-wide trailer home - lawyers have filed a federal lawsuit to try and make things square.

"It is a complicated matter," said Topper Glass, a Springfield lawyer representing the library. "We really have no idea how much money we're talking about because all of the accounting resources have been in the possession of the publishers."

Named as defendants are HarperCollins, the estate of Roger Lea MacBride - the beneficiary of Lane's will - and MacBride's daughter, Abigail MacBride Allen. Their lawyers say the library waited too long to claim royalties and have asked that the lawsuit be dismissed.

The story is a sticky one, indeed, and court documents read like one of Wilder's tales of family woe.

It begins when Laura Ingalls Wilder and her husband, Almanzo Wilder, left the Dakota Territory in a covered wagon for life in the more temperate hills of Missouri. The couple landed in Mansfield on Aug. 31, 1894.

"There is everything here already that one could want. . . . There is a good school. Around the Square, two general stores, two drug stores, the bank, a Boston Racket store, livery stable, blacksmith shop near. There are several nice large houses in big yards with trees," Wilder recounted in her book "On the Way Home."

The only thing missing from Mansfield, it seemed, was a library. During her involvement with civic and social organizations, Wilder helped create the Wright County Library in nearby Hartville. A branch was later added in Mansfield.

Between her self-imposed civic duties, Wilder began writing books based on her childhood memories of life on the frontier during the 1870s and 1880s. She was 65 when her first book, "Little House in the Big Woods," was published in 1932 by Harper & Row, now HarperCollins.

The books were an immediate hit with children worldwide.

Before her death, Wilder directed in her will that her only child, Rose Wilder Lane, receive all proceeds from her literary estate "during her natural life." At the time of Lane's death, the will says, the library should inherit those proceeds.

But those plans were thwarted by her daughter, the lawsuit alleges.

Lane, a cosmopolitan journalist who worked on assignments around the world, was strikingly different from her rural mother. She was a publicist for the American Red Cross during World War I and was the first biographer of Herbert Hoover.

She also played an important role as the editor of her mother's "Little House" books. Since Wilder had only limited writing experience when she embarked on the series, she turned to Lane for assistance with the series.

The editor-writer relationship between this daughter and mother was not without conflict, as evidenced by the diaries, book drafts and letters from the Rose Wilder Lane Collection, housed at the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library in West Branch, Iowa.

Wilder submitted drafts of her work to Lane with a certain trepidation. Lane edited the manuscripts and, as she said, ran them "through my own typewriter." Sensitive about the quality of her writing, Wilder at times objected to the changes and said on occasion that the stories were no longer hers. Lane responded emphatically that the stories were and would always be the work of Laura Ingalls Wilder.

"These were two very strong-willed ladies, and certainly when you get into this professional relationship there was tension," said Dwight Miller, a retired senior archivist from the Hoover library. "Outside of the editing table, there was also a lot of affection between these two."

Miller said there is no evidence in Lane's papers that suggests she purposefully went against her mother's wishes in the will.

By the time her mother died at age 90, Lane had become close friends with Roger Lea MacBride, the son of a Reader's Digest editor. She was 56 and MacBride was 14 when they met, and before long, Lane started referring to the young man as her "adopted grandson," according to the lawsuit.

Before Lane died at age 81, she filed copyright-renewal applications on six of her mother's books under her own name. And in her will, Lane left her entire estate to "my friend, Roger Lea MacBride."

MacBride, who died in 1995, was a lawyer and author who helped produce the "Little House on the Prairie" television series.

The lawsuit claims MacBride received the rights to the six books renewed by Lane, plus five more copyrights he renewed himself as the beneficiary of Lane's estate.

MacBride left his entire estate, including the royalties to the Wilder books, to his daughter, Abigail MacBride Allen of Virginia. Allen has an unlisted number and her lawyers have declined to comment while the lawsuit is pending.

Wilder's presence remains strong in Mansfield, a dairy town of 1,400. Her home is now a museum visited by 50,000 visitors a year from around the world.

Meanwhile, a few hundred miles from where Wilder is buried, the little library is still coping. The two part-time librarians, not able to keep pace with computer catalog technology, still pull circulation cards from brown sleeves in the backs of books. Due dates are manually stamped.

And with its leaky roof and intermittent heating, it can leave visitors shivering in the winter months.

"Without heat, it can really feel like the long winter in here," Cline said.