Laura Ingalls Wilder - Estate

Estate

Following Wilder's death, ownership of Rocky Ridge Farmhouse reverted to the farmer who had earlier bought the surrounding land. The local townsfolk put together a non-profit corporation to purchase the house and its grounds, for use as a museum. After some wariness at the notion of seeing the house rather than the books themselves be a shrine to her mother, Lane came to believe that making a museum of it would draw long-lasting attention to the books. She donated the money needed to purchase the house and make it a museum, agreed to make significant contributions each year for its upkeep and also gave many of the family's belongings to help establish what became a popular museum that still draws thousands of visitors each year to Mansfield. Lane inherited ownership of the "Little House" literary estate for her lifetime only, all rights reverting to the Mansfield library after her death, according to her mother's will. After her death in 1968, Lane's heir, Roger MacBride, gained control of the copyrights. MacBride was Lane's informally adopted grandson, as well as her business agent, attorney, and heir. All of MacBride's actions carried Lane's apparent approval. In fact, at Lane's request, the copyrights to each of the "Little House" books, as well as those of Lane's own literary works, had been renewed in MacBride's name when the original copyrights expired during the decade between Wilder's and Lane's deaths. Controversy did not come until after MacBride's death in 1995, when the Laura Ingalls Wilder Branch of the Wright County Library (which Wilder helped found) in Mansfield, Missouri, decided it was worth trying to recover the rights. The ensuing court case was settled in an undisclosed manner, but MacBride's heirs retained the rights. The library received enough to start work on a new building. The popularity of the Little House series of books has grown phenomenally over the years, spawning a multimillion-dollar franchise of mass merchandising, additional spinoff book series (some written by MacBride and his daughter), and the long-running television show, starring Michael Landon. Laura Ingalls Wilder has been portrayed by Melissa Gilbert (1974–1984), Meredith Monroe (1997, 1998) and Kyle Chavarria (2005) in television series. Wilder once said the reason she wrote her books in the first place was to preserve the stories of her childhood for today's children, to help them to understand how much America had changed during her lifetime.