WALNUT GROVE - When the sun goes down and darkness falls over the outdoor amphitheater, the past is illuminated through the eyes of Laura Ingalls Wilder in the production of “Fragments of a Dream.”
For 38 years, Walnut Grove has been home to the pageant that tells the story of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s time living “On the Banks of Plum Creek.”
The story is narrated by adult Laura - played by Heidi Morgan - as she reminisces about her time in Walnut Grove and the hardships her family and the community faced. During the approximately two-hour performance, Laura’s family struggles through a grasshopper plague that devours their crop, a prairie fire that almost takes the family’s house and how the blindness of Mary - one of Laura’s sisters - tests the Ingalls’ strength.
Though the family had its hard times, the Ingalls enjoyed plenty of happiness when they were able showcase their love for one another, share their faith in God and help build a loving community filled with all types of charismatic characters.
Each of the 16 scenes took on a small story of their own. From building the town church, creating a city council, celebrating Christmas and Laura’s birthday party on Plum Creek, it seems as though there was never a dull moment in Laura’s time growing up in Walnut Grove.
Just as the Ingalls family help build Walnut Grove, those that partake in the Laura Ingalls Wilder Pageant have built their own community. Errol Steffen, who plays Charles Ingalls, is the only cast member to be involved for all 38 years of pageant productions. He said the people he works with keep him coming back.
“Getting together with all the people is great,” Steffen said. “We get together for a couple months and then, after it’s over, you just don’t see any of them hardly at all for the rest of the year. It’s like another world out here.”
The pageant runs one more weekend this year on July 24 and 25. The show continues to draw crowds from all over the country and world each year.
“I’m thankful for the people that started Walnut Grove and those who pushed for the pageant,” wrote Erin Richards, the pageant’s director, in her program notes. “They have helped me become who I am today and have instilled in me that wonderful sense of community. I hope it will continue long after I am gone.
“Walnut Grove is a small community, but it has a huge heart that continues to beat strongly 141 years after Laura and her family arrived.”
