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The little village of South Troy, Minnesota, is significant in that it was the final resting place of
Laura's infant brother Charles Frederic Ingalls. In the summer of 1876, the Ingalls family was backtrailing from their home in Walnut Grove, Minnesota, to Burr Oak, Iowa, where Pa had been offered a job working at a hotel by some friends from Walnut Grove who had purchased the building. On their way, they spent the summer with Uncle Peter, Aunt Eliza, and the cousins, who were living on a farm along the Zumbro River near Zumbro Falls, Minnesota. |
| While there, tragedy struck. Little Freddy became seriously ill and died from dehydration. As the Ingalls family
Bible records that he was buried in South Troy, Minnesota, it is likely that he was buried in the Pleasant Prairie Cemetery,
also known as the Dale Cemetery. An unmarked limestone marker was found in the cemetery row of a local family whose
son died the same day as Freddy. Records do not indicate who was buried here, and it seems possible that this family
allowed the Ingalls family to bury Freddy in their plot. A marker was erected on Highway 63 in South Troy, Minnesota, to memorialize the Ingalls' stay in the area and the loss of their only son Freddy. Also at the site are an 1884 Methodist Church, a little red schoolhouse, and a log cabin. |
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