Music from These Happy Golden Years

In her famous Little House series of eight books Laura Ingalls Wilder (1867–1957) loosely traces her family’s history through episodes located in Wisconsin, Kansas, Minnesota, and South Dakota over a period from 1867 to 1885. Embedded in the stories are references to 127 separate songs and tunes. Surely, few if any books in American literature of comparable standing and popularity feature America’s common, vernacular music so centrally, assign it such a major narrative role, and index it in such rich abundance.

 

This songbook contains all the pieces mentioned in These Happy Golden Years.

Come In and Shut the Door

Doxology

Gaily Now Our Boat Is Sailing

Golden Years Are Passing By

Haste to the Wedding

The Heavens Declare the Glory

Highland Mary

In Dreamland Far Away

In the Starlight

Jingle Bells

Let the Toast Pass

Love’s Old Sweet Song

My Heart Is Sair for Somebody

My Sabbath Home

O Whistle and I’ll Come to You

Polly-Wolly-Doodle

The Singin Skewl

The Song of the Grass

The Star of Bethlehem

Three Blind Mice

The Tread-Mill