Goodbye, Mrs. Wilder

Willie is having a bit of fun getting into trouble at school. Laura is trying to teach the class about New York and he just isn’t interested in the subject. She gets upset and sends him to the corner. She returns to teaching the children about the Brooklyn Bridge that is in the middle of being constructed. Mrs. Oleson comes in with a member of the school board to an evaluation of her teaching and her needs. She is a bit nervous but continues on. When she asks the children questions, no one will answer her and she is a bit embarrassed.

Almonzo comes home from work to a very angry wife. She is wondering why she ever became a teacher. She is furious is trying to get supper done before she has to return to the school tonight for an emergency school board meeting that Mrs. Oleson has called. Mrs. Oleson wants to add art appreciation and French! Laura objects because the students are having a hard time grasping the basics. The board agrees with Laura when she tells them that these children are farm children and the basics are what they need to focus on. Mrs. Oleson pushes her agenda through and Laura asks her if she really thinks that one teacher can keep up with the new rigorous schedule. She laughs as she tells Laura that of course one teacher can handle it! Laura wishes her good luck because she quits! She stands in front of the room and introduces Mrs. Oleson as the new teacher!

Charles is trying to figure out what the new dress code that Mrs. Oleson has imposed will cost. It is just too much and Charles is annoyed. Caroline is very worried about Laura. She knows that she has always wanted to be a teacher and she wonders how she is holding up.

Mrs. Oleson lines up all the children and inspects their uniforms. She is not happy when one of the little girls is missing her white stockings. Her parents can’t afford them. She tells the girl that her family will just have to finance the socks! She starts the class and a new student comes in to register. They boy, Ralph tells his father that he doesn’t want to dress in the stupid clothes that Mrs. Oleson wants him to wear. His father assures her that he will have the proper clothes tomorrow. Ralph causes a bit of trouble in class and Willie gets blamed for it all!

Albert keeps refusing to wear his Sunday socks to school so today he decides to die his legs black with coal dust! He shows his friend at school and he thinks it’s pretty funny.

Mrs. Oleson shows the children artwork and some of the parents strongly object when their children come home and tell them that she showed them naked ladies in class! One of the fathers is so upset he insists on seeing the pictures himself. He tells her that he is going to call in the law after he sees the pictures!

Laura has her parents over for supper. Caroline comments how sparkling clean the house is. She is trying to keep busy. She is obviously a bit upset about not teaching. Her parents just want her to be happy. The longer they talk about it the more she realizes how much she misses teaching. She starts to cry. Laura pulls herself together and decides to make this work.

Mrs. Oleson is making the children count in French. She is the only one who is having any fun. She makes Albert stand and count to three. He can’t do it to her satisfaction and when one of the boys pulls Willie’s hair he lets out a yell. He then gets sent to the corner.

After school the boys get together and talk about how much they hate school now. Albert tells Ralph that when his sister was the teacher, school was much more interesting. Ralph thinks they should do something to get her back. The school board man is coming in a few days. They start thinking of a plan.

Albert goes to Laura and tells her that all the children miss her terribly! Albert tells her that if the school board won’t give them some money then Mrs. Oleson will probably not want to teach any more. Laura knows he is up to something but doesn’t try real hard to stop him.

Laura has made a very fancy lemon chicken for Manly for dinner. It turns out that it’s a bit too fancy for him and he doesn’t like it. She spent all day on the chicken and now she feels that her day has been wasted!

Nells is watching his wife paint gook on her wrinkles as she boasts that she thinks that they will get the school grant for sure! And all because of her of course! Nells doesn’t care.

Manly apologizes to Laura about the dinner and tells her that he ate all of his supper. She tells him that she isn’t angry about him not liking the dinner, she is upset with herself. She knows the children are going to do something to embarrass Mrs. Oleson while the man from the school board is there and she is happy about it. She asks manly if it’s wrong wanting her to quit so badly. He doesn’t’ answer her.

Mr. Stoller from the school board has arrived and the children are totally out of control! They are throwing papers and screaming! Laura enters the school and orders the children to stop behaving so badly! She is ashamed that they would do something like this. Mrs. Oleson can’t figure out what is going on and doesn’t know why the children would do such a thing. Laura explains that the children wanted a teacher that wouldn’t force them to follow a dress code and make them practice French. Laura tells the children that they have learned more than usual and she scolds them and orders them to show Mrs. Oleson respect and now! They all scramble to get things in order.

Mrs. Olesen is proudly having her class recite French in front of Mr. Stoller. She tells them they will have a test tomorrow and tells the children that they are dismissed. Mr. Stoller agrees to recommend that the school receive the grant. However he thinks that the extra classes should have something to do with the region. He doesn’t think that French would be useful to the children. She doesn’t like what she is hearing. He tells her that maybe she should teach a class on agriculture. She is not amused! When Mr. Stoller leaves Nells turns and reminds her that Laura tried to tell her the same thing before this whole thing started.

Albert and the other children come out to Laura’s house to apologize to her and beg her to come back. Mrs. Oleson said she is quitting and she can have her job back if she wants it.

Finally things are back to normal at school. Laura starts teaching agriculture and gets rid of the dress code. And when the new boy pulls Willie’s hair again she catches him and puts him in the corner!

This one was great! I think that the better of the epie are the parts where Mrs. Oleson tries to teach school. I think she did it worthy, poor thing..But she looked a bit snobbish trying to teach French to the children...since she seems not to know it too much. As for the art class...Funny! I laughed to tears when this angry father comes to accuse her of being showing "pornography" to children. Poor Harriet!!!

Vanesa

I like this one. Manly was trying so hard to be understanding and poor Laura just really let him have it. I loved the end when Laura put Ralph in the corner. It was great to see Willie's triumphant smile.

Cheryl

I liked this one. it was fun to see the school children make fun of Harriet in her attempts to be the teacher. I indeed was surprised when Laura stuck up for Harriet and told the children to listen to Harriet, especially after Harriet was so rude when insisting that French and Art Appreciation be added to the list of topics for the school children to learn!

I used to get this one confused with the first episode of Season 9, where Laura leaves teaching and Miss Plum comes in. Not sure why, probably the title.

This is one of my all time favorite episodes of Little House. I love that the kid conspired to get rid of Mrs. Olsen.

I saw this tonight. Funny episode. The look on Mrs. Olsen face, when one of the parents comes in. Saying are you showing my boy dirty pictures.

This part is one of my favorites! The man was furious and she couldn't convince him of she was only teaching classic art t her pupils!

The part that made me laugh too was when she was practicing her french and Nels got angry for dinner wasn't ready!

Vanesa.

Vanesa wrote:

The part that made me laugh too was when she was practicing her french and Nels got angry for dinner wasn't ready!

Which makes no sense because he's the only one in the house that can cook.

I had forgotten that the actor who played Harlan in the Winoka episodes is also Ralph Parker's father.

I also thought it funny that Caroline asked Charles to turn out the lights when they went to bed. I'm pretty sure she usually referred to them as lamps, not lights.

She was actually good at teaching. She managed to teach all the nomal subjects with two new ones. The kids hated it, but they learned somthing. Harriet would love teaching French in a private girls school if she could and she'd feel right at home.

Yeah..I agree...

funny episode...

ya she could have thrown abucket of water on her

I liked this episode....of course Mrs Olsen added a certain Je ne c'est quio (no pun intended) to every episode she was in

I know it was "art" but I laughed out loud that Harriet could show the boys of Walnut Grove,
"The Rape of the Sabine Women" but get angry over Willie looking at corset ads.

I love this episode. Willie sure was shocked when Laura believed him about Ralph pulling his hair and sent Ralph to the corner due to her seeing the hair pulling out of the corner of her eye. Ms.Oleson didn't like having Laura and Charles tell her that it would be a waste of time making the students learn French and art appreciation. Charles pointed out that the students most likely will be farmers and or be the wives of farmers and thought they needed to learn about farming and Mrs.Oleson didn't like it when Nels took Charles' side. I like how Albert fooled Mrs.Oleson into believing he was wearing black stockings when he applied coal dust.

"The Rape of the Sabine Women" is a fine work of art, whereas Willy was merely gawking at the corset ads.

Another thing - if Walnut Grove were to add a second language to its school curriculum, wouldn't Norwegian have been more practical in that part of the state? Or German, especially after the spelling bee incident a couple years earlier with that German family (can't remember their name).

That's true, but to most people in Walnut Grove, they couldn't see the difference. That's why that gentleman said to gear the higher learning toward what they would use and be more practical. Even today, learning for learning sake is looked down on by many, uusally the "rich" can do that, but less affluent children are told to do something practical, "What do you need that for?"

I thought Harriet too would be great teaching in a private school...fit right in. Funny episode.

Funny how these themes get repeated, I caught part of the Rifleman which I never really watched, it was about the new school teacher, very mean they thought, wanted them to wear shoes, certain clothes, lots of homework, etc. but by the end they saw a different side and he did of them. I wish LHOP ended that way too when they had the mean replacement teacher...they made him certifiable. Poor Albert in that show.

Oh, you are referring to the art issue. At first I thought you were responding to my thoughts on the second language issue. Couldn't quite make sense of what you were saying.

Sorry, that's what happens when you write at 6am when you first wake up. : ) Next time I'll drink coffee first and read it over..but yes, the art thing and and then I thought of the Rifleman which I watched the night before.

I really like this episode. Mrs. Oleson is hilarious teaching the kids art appreciation and French. But I really love that Laura did recognize she had accomplished something, and I think it was really sweet of Laura to say that in front of the kids. I also love how this episode seemed to sort of mark a turning point in Laura and Willie's relationship, with his look of admiration for her at the end, when she (rightly) sent the other kid to the corner. And I think it was neat that the class was going to learn about agriculture. I agree that was probably a much more useful subject for them than French, given their circumstances.

I do wonder what people in France who saw/see this episode think of it! And I wonder how they do that when they dub the episode in French.....for the part where Mrs. Oleson and the kids are badly speaking French, do they leave the original actors' voices??? I think that's what they should do so that the French-speaking people can hear how bad the French is being spoken by the kids and Mrs. Oleson!

Oh, I also love Almanzo's reaction to the lemon chicken and how he mutters that he like the cinnamon chicken better! Love it when there are references to events that happened in other episodes. And one other part I love is how Nels really sincerely seems to be glad that Harriet is back working at the mercantile. I love it when he kisses her there, and for a moment, we see her soften up! I actually prefer when they are not squabbling so much with each other, even though some of their squabbles are pretty funny (like when she was applying all that weird white junk over her wrinkles at bedtime!)

And another part of the episode I love is when Charles is trying to get Grace to eat. Grace is just so adorable to me that I love pretty much any scene she is in. Once again, I wonder if she is just speaking "in real life" rather than "in character" when she talks about "my house" and such....that's what I think happened, but Michael Landon just went with it and started talking about how this is his house too!

bethandmanly wrote:

Vanesa wrote:

The part that made me laugh too was when she was practicing her french and Nels got angry for dinner wasn't ready!

Which makes no sense because he's the only one in the house that can cook.

I had forgotten that the actor who played Harlan in the Winoka episodes is also Ralph Parker's father.

I also thought it funny that Caroline asked Charles to turn out the lights when they went to bed. I'm pretty sure she usually referred to them as lamps, not lights.

I noticed that part, too, and I wondered if people back then would have said "turn out the lights." I think Karen Grassle may have flubbed that line.....also, later, Almanzo tells Laura that he will put out the lamps or something - I mean he uses the word "lamps" and not "lights."

Sadly, they left out the part on COZI-TV of the father coming in complaining about Mrs. Oleson showing the kids dirty pictures!!! Oh, I wish they had left that part in!

any time when Mrs. Oleson did not get what she wanted is worth watching it was also pretty good when Albert outsmarted her about wearing the black socks to school! And, when things finally went Willie's way and someone else got sent to stand in the corner at the end of the episode, I think that was the first time that had ever happened!