Little House on the Prairie 50 Years OF LOVE, FAMILY &FAITH

THE CAST OF THE BELOVED TV SERIES SHARE SECRETS, SPECIAL MOMENTS AND MEMORIES 

- LOUISE A. BARILE

In the first season of Little House on the Prairie, a typhus outbreak swept through Walnut Grove. “During the scene, when I was dying, my father got so emotional,” recalls Leslie Landon Matthews, who guest starred on the episode. The daughter of Little House’s star and guiding light, Michael Landon, moved him to tears with her performance. “He had to redo the scene because he knew that Charles Ingalls would not have been so emotional over a neighbor’s child.”

For nine seasons, beginning in 1974, Little House wore its heart on its sleeve while welcoming viewers into the lives of the Ingalls family and their neighbors. Serious topics of survival, prejudice, addiction and the importance of family were explored along with a liberal dose of warmth and humor. “We watch Little House on the Prairie as a reminder that if we could make it through [the hardships of the past], we can make it through [anything],” Melissa Gilbert, who played Laura, tells Closer. “But the only way we’re going to do that is if we love one another, understand one another, have compassion for one another, and gather together as a community with all of the things that bind us — faith, love, understanding. That’s the bottom line.”