Once Upon a Time -- Question

I just watched "Once Upon a Time", and I had a question about it. At the beginning of the episode, Laura is wrapping up her substitute teaching duties, filling in for Miss Plum, who injured her ankle. We're led to believe that Laura has been filling in for Miss Plum for several weeks. My question is, who was watching Rose? Surely, Almanzo would have been busy during the day working on the farm and in town. For that matter, who watched Rose while Laura and Jenny were in Minneapolis for weeks? Is this another writing blunder?

Me too Rhonda. Married women didn't work and they didn't wait to have children solely because they wanted to work for a couple more years, like Laura said to Almanzo in "The Nephews". I think it's rare for a show to actually address the whereabouts of the main character's children except upon rare occasions. I mean, how often did Caroline go into town without her children? Then when she went to work we sometimes saw Grace in the kitchen and other times we had no idea where she was.

Yes. But Donald Zochert tell us that Miss Beadle , Laura's techer, must have been a married woman. Laura wrote that Miss Beadle was named "Eva", but Zochert examined Walnut Grove records and the only Eva Beadle at the time, was Mr. Lafayette Bedal's daughter..currently FOUR years old. So, the only solution Zochert found is to said that Miss Beadle (really Bedal), must have been a "Mrs".

This is what he wrote in page 82

"...Laura remembered that the teacher's name was Eva Bedal, and that she had a face that seemed very sweet and welcome the two country girls going to school there for the first time. But the only Eva Bedal at town was Mr. Bedal's little daughter, and she was only four years old.Perhaps, the postmaster's wife, Clementina Bedal, was the teacher..."

By the way, I'm always surprised about American Educational Laws from Laura's time. Here in Argentina at that time, a married woman could reach the post of principal of a school. In fact, most f them were married. Sarmiento, our president between 1870-1876, brought a lot of teachers from the USA's to work here, and some of them were professors. They were all married. Maybe they left EEUU for they couldn't work there as married persons? :think:

Vanesa.

bethandmanly wrote:

Me too Rhonda. Married women didn't work and they didn't wait to have children solely because they wanted to work for a couple more years, like Laura said to Almanzo in "The Nephews". I think it's rare for a show to actually address the whereabouts of the main character's children except upon rare occasions. I mean, how often did Caroline go into town without her children? Then when she went to work we sometimes saw Grace in the kitchen and other times we had no idea where she was.

I think that at these times, women had a lot of children. So the elders would care for the littler. This was the case of one of my great-great grandmothers. She had exactly ten children. But she was always busy going to see friends or simply drinking tea and mate in her kitchen. However, none of her children had an accident, and all were well educated and behaved. The reason? The elder of them would watch for their little brothers and sisters. They don't need to have a baby-sitter. In some cases, neighbors will watch over the children. And you must remember that a child of seven was considered old enough to care of himself/herself and his/her little brothers and sisters.

Vanesa.

Vanesa wrote:

Yes. But Donald Zochert tell us that Miss Beadle , Laura's techer, must have been a married woman. Laura wrote that Miss Beadle was named "Eva", but Zochert examined Walnut Grove records and the only Eva Beadle at the time, was Mr. Lafayette Bedal's daughter..currently FOUR years old. So, the only solution Zochert found is to said that Miss Beadle (really Bedal), must have been a "Mrs".

This is what he wrote in page 82

"...Laura remembered that the teacher's name was Eva Bedal, and that she had a face that seemed very sweet and welcome the two country girls going to school there for the first time. But the only Eva Bedal at town was Mr. Bedal's little daughter, and she was only four years old.Perhaps, the postmaster's wife, Clementina Bedal, was the teacher..."

Another possible solution is that he had an unmarried sister named Eva living with him, or just living in the same town. The women, unfortunately, weren't always listed by name if they were unmarried.
It really doesn't seem very likely that Laura would mistake two such different names as Eva and Clementina. But I suppose anything is possible.

I remember you mentioning before how different the laws were in Argentina regarding female school teachers around Laura's time, compared with America's laws. It really is quite interesting!

Vanesa wrote:

bethandmanly wrote:

Me too Rhonda. Married women didn't work and they didn't wait to have children solely because they wanted to work for a couple more years, like Laura said to Almanzo in "The Nephews". I think it's rare for a show to actually address the whereabouts of the main character's children except upon rare occasions. I mean, how often did Caroline go into town without her children? Then when she went to work we sometimes saw Grace in the kitchen and other times we had no idea where she was.

I think that at these times, women had a lot of children. So the elders would care for the littler. This was the case of one of my great-great grandmothers. She had exactly ten children. But she was always busy going to see friends or simply drinking tea and mate in her kitchen. However, none of her children had an accident, and all were well educated and behaved. The reason? The elder of them would watch for their little brothers and sisters. They don't need to have a baby-sitter. In some cases, neighbors will watch over the children. And you must remember that a child of seven was considered old enough to care of himself/herself and his/her little brothers and sisters.

Vanesa.

In this instance, though, the older children were in school at the time.......So when the older children were in school, and Ma was at the restaurant, it seems like the writers could have had Ma mention in passing where Grace was. For instance, commenting that she's thankful to have someone like Mrs. Foster to watch Grace while she works, or whatever..........But it seems like the writers just put Grace up on the shelf, out of the way. :haha:

Hope you don't mind me hijacking this thread for a moment. My girls were watching "Once Upon A Time" today and I kept thinking the plot sounded familiar. Then I realized that parts of it were like the Anne 3 movie. Both Anne and Laura travel away from home and they do it for their writing. Both women are like fish out of water--the small town girl in the big city. Both women end up dealing with less than honest publishing houses. Russell (LHOP) and Jack Garrison (Anne3) like their alcohol a bit too much and admire the writing of the women they end up working with. And in the end, both women return home without a published novel.

I bet it's sheer coincidence, but it was driving me crazy until I figured out why it sounded so familiar to me. :think:

bethandmanly wrote:

Hope you don't mind me hijacking this thread for a moment. My girls were watching "Once Upon A Time" today and I kept thinking the plot sounded familiar. Then I realized that parts of it were like the Anne 3 movie. Both Anne and Laura travel away from home and they do it for their writing. Both women are like fish out of water--the small town girl in the big city. Both women end up dealing with less than honest publishing houses. Russell (LHOP) and Jack Garrison (Anne3) like their alcohol a bit too much and admire the writing of the women they end up working with. And in the end, both women return home without a published novel.

I bet it's sheer coincidence, but it was driving me crazy until I figured out why it sounded so familiar to me. :think:

I didn't notice that, since I didn't watch Anne's movies more than once and I don't remember much of them...Television writers uses to copy each other too much. It happens all around the world. I've seen movies and series where they have used complete dialogs and plots from other movies and series...Really annoying.

Vanesa.

sweetheart wrote:

That really annoyed me, when women got married they had to quit working. you can tell she was so upset when she had to quit.

Actually, in Argentina was not this way. Even principals of schools could be married. And believe ir or not, three of them - the most famous, for they've founded High Schools here - were AMERICAN! They came to Argentina in 1880 and perfrmed a great job for little children and young girls education. In fact, to keep working after marrying was a dessition that the women herself and her husband must to take, not the laws. In some cases, husbands wouldn't feel at ease if their wifes keep working, for it was as if they wasn't able to support the household all by themselves, so they asked their wives to quit. The lower classes of society used to do that. But there were lot of husbands that let the dessition to their wifes.

At the TV show - not in real life - it was Laura's idea to not work any more to try to educate Rose in a better way. She looks really dissapointed, for she liked t teach a lot, but she als knows that her daughter need her.

In real life, Laura was very glad to let her teacher job aside, since she DIDN'T LIKE TO TEACH AT ALL. She was very shy and rather like to stay home with her beloved ones. She only taught school to help support Mary's studies at Vinton, Iowa.

Vanesa.

I suppose it was harder to get things done if you worked a lot of hours. Not having microwaves, slow cookers, washing machines, grocery stores with butter and cheese, the list goes on, and you went to bed early, the hours would get used up pretty quickly. Just being married, you wouldn't be as busy as with children, but I can't imagine leaving mine to work back then, when they were all young, unless my mother or someone lived close by.

A couple of things bothered me with this episode.

First, if Laura is (as she discovers) to be in Minneapolis for two, then four and possibly 6 weeks, why would she want Jenny with her all that time? Surely she would miss Rose and go back and get her. The publishers would have paid for a nanny for those times Laura was away from the hotel. And it's not as though there were any good scenes between Laura and Jenny; I was expecting a side-plot of sorts involving Jenny in the big city.

Second, the flash-forward just threw me completely...I thought I was watching an advert at first. Granted, it was 7am and I'd only had one cup of coffee but it just seemed so off to me. Far better, in my opinion, just to have ML's voiceover about Laura's literary career than bother with 1980s Tuscon scenes.

I just finished this one. I do remember the ending, as it was quite a departure for a LITTLE HOUSE episode (but I do like it). Although this episode is far from reality, as we know Laura did not start writing her books until many, many years later, I do like the episode, especially for the fact that we get to hear an excerpt from one of the real books, as I believe that is the real ending of LITTLE HOUSE IN THE BIG WOODS that we hear Laura reading to Jenny and Almanzo (isn't it?).

I do think it may have been inappropriate for Laura to go out to eat with Russell, especially after she already knew he was interested in her romantically. And I find it a bit unlikely that her little speech to him near the end would lead him to just suddenly make the decision to finish his own novel. Plus, I don't think that Almanzo could manage taking care of Rose and doing the planting, so did they get someone else to watch Rose during that whole time Laura was gone? (I also do not accept that Laura would ever stay away from her young daughter for that length of time!) I wish that Laura would have gone back home with the reworked novel, saying she needed time to think about it (or something) and read it to both Jenny and Almanzo and that it would have been Almanzo's reaction to it that would have convinced Laura to decline the award. I would have like to have know what Almanzo would have thought. Or I wish that Almanzo had shown up with Rose in Minneapolis in time to hear the reworked novel and respond to it.

Glad that Laura read the fine print in the contract and insisted on it being changed.

I also watched this entire episode for the first time recently, and was surprised by the ending. It was so different from other LH episode endings, though I enjoyed it because I recognized the cover of the book the little girl took off the shelf at the library As someone who, like Laura in this episode, wants to publish a book, it was interesting to be able to relate to her character in this way while watching the episode