"In downtown De Smet I visited the Laura Ingalls Wilder Historic Homes properties, where visitors can tour the one‑room schoolhouse Laura and her sister Carrie attended and the small Surveyors House the Ingalls family lived in briefly; executive director Mary Jo Wertz stages period displays—pickles, canned peaches, and saltine crackers—to recreate a meal likely eaten in the very room. A few buildings on these downtown sites are original Ingalls structures, and together with the homestead re‑creations they offer a tangible sense of the family’s daily life and handiwork, like the chest of drawers built by Charles Ingalls that I found astonishing for its survival and carved detail." - Amy McCarthy