Rose Wilder Lane

Rose Wilder Lane

Rose Wilder Lane was an American journalist, travel writer, novelist, political theorist and daughter of American writer Laura Ingalls Wilder. Along with two other female writers, Ayn Rand and Isabel Paterson, Lane is noted as one of the founders of the American libertarian movement. Lane’s first-hand accounts of the lives of Henry Ford, Charlie Chaplin, Jack London and Herbert Hoover were published in book form in 1915.

About Rose Wilder Lane in brief

Summary Rose Wilder LaneRose Wilder Lane was an American journalist, travel writer, novelist, political theorist and daughter of American writer Laura Ingalls Wilder. Along with two other female writers, Ayn Rand and Isabel Paterson, Lane is noted as one of the founders of the American libertarian movement. Lane’s first-hand accounts of the lives of Henry Ford, Charlie Chaplin, Jack London and Herbert Hoover were published in book form in 1915. Lane never remarried and eventually chose to remain single and free of romantic attachments. Lane was the first child of Laura Ingall Wilder and Almanzo Wilder, and the only child of her parents to survive into adulthood. Her early years were a difficult time for her parents because of successive crop failures, illnesses and chronic economic hardships. She attended secondary school in Mansfield and Crowley, Louisiana while living with her aunt Eliza Jane Wilder; she graduated in 1904 in a class of seven. Lane married salesman, promoter and occasional newspaperman Claire Gillette Lane in March 1909. Lane soon became pregnant. While staying in Salt Lake City the following November, Lane gave birth to a premature, stillborn son, according to public records. The topic is mentioned only briefly in a handful of existing letters written by Lane years after the infant’s death in order to express sympathy and understanding to close friends who were also dealing with the loss of a child. In 1913 and 1914, the Lanes sold farm land in what is now the San JoseSilicon Valley area of Northern California.

The threat of America’s entry into World War I had seriously weakened the real estate market, so in early 1915 Lane accepted a friend’s offer of a job as an editorial assistant on the editorial staff of the San Francisco Bulletin. She caught the attention of her editors immediately, not only through her talents as a writer, but also as a highly skilled editor for other writers. Later in 1915, Lane visited Panama with her mother for several months and attended the International Exposition of Exposition-position of Panama in Panama City, where she wrote about the life of the Panamanian people. She later moved to San Francisco, California, to live with her husband and had a son, who was born in 1916. Lane died of a heart attack in 1939, at the age of 48. She is survived by her husband, Claire, her son and her daughter, who is now in her 80s and 90s. Lane is buried in San Francisco’s Mission Hill Cemetery, next to her husband’s former home, the home where she had lived with her father and his family for many years. She was buried in a plot of white marble with a portrait of her late husband, Charles Lane, which is now on display at the University of California, San Francisco. She also has a son with her former husband, William Lane, and a daughter with her ex-husband, who now lives in San Diego, California. Lane also has two step-daughters, who are in their 70s and 80s.