Caroline was born 15 miles west of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in the Town of Brookfield, Waukesha County. She was the fifth of seven children of Henry Quiner and Charlotte Quiner. Her brothers were Joseph, Henry, and Thomas, and her sisters were Martha Jane and Eliza. When Caroline was 5, her father was second mate on a ship that capsized and sank on Lake Michigan near the Straits of Mackinac. There were no survivors. In 1849, her mother married farmer Frederick Holbrook. They had one child together, Charlotte "Lottie" Holbrook. Caroline evidently loved and respected her stepfather, and would later honor his memory by naming her son after him. At the age of 16 1/2, Caroline started working as a teacher.
Charles Frederick "Freddie" Ingalls was born on November 1, 1875, in Walnut Grove, Minnesota, and died August 27, 1876, in South Troy, Minnesota, of indeterminate causes. In her autobiography, Laura remembers that "Little Brother was not well" and that "one terrible day, he straightened out his little body and was dead". Wilder scholar William Anderson noted: "Nearly forty years after Freddie's death, Ma mourned him, telling relatives how different everything would be 'if Freddie had lived'."
Travels and later years
The Ingalls family traveled by covered wagon from Wisconsin; Kansas ; Burr Oak, Iowa; and Minnesota. In 1879, they settled in De Smet in Dakota Territory. After arriving in De Smet, Caroline and the Ingalls family lived in the home of the local surveyor as well as a store in the downtown area, before homesteading just outside town on a farm by Silver Lake. When the Ingalls family sold the farm due to a persistent pattern of dry years, Charles built a home for them on Third Street in De Smet, known later as "The House That Pa Built". Following her husband's death from heart disease in 1902 at age 66, Ingalls and her oldest daughter, Mary, remained in the De Smet house, renting one of the rooms for extra income. Following a long illness, Caroline Ingalls died on Easter Sunday, April 20, 1924, at the age of 84.
In the media
The fictional series The Caroline Years, an extension of the Little House series, by Maria D. Wilkes and Celia Wilkins, follows Caroline Quiner from her fifth year to her late teens, up to her engagement to Charles. The first title in the series is Little House in Brookfield. The novelCaroline: Little House, Revisited by Sarah Miller follows the Ingalls family move from Pepin, Wisconsin to Kansas Territory from the viewpoint of Caroline. The novel was authorized by the Little House Heritage Trust.
