Summary

During the last part of her life, Laura rarely traveled and did not go to De Smet for the funeral of her sister Grace, who died in November of 1941 at 64 after a long struggle with diabetes. She confessed to her agent George Bye her mixed emotions about finishing her writing career, and he assured her that her books would be "an American fixture" (442). When These Happy Golden Years was published during the opening month of the hit Broadway show Oklahoma, the book became a critical success.

Rose, along with the writers Isabel Mary Paterson and Ayn Rand, established the foundation of libertarianism in the United Sates. The three authors were convinced of the vila of "collectivism" and celebrated self-reliances. Rose's book The Discovery of Freedom was derivative of Paterson's work and also called on Laura's anecdotes about the frontier. Rose's postcard...