Did Laura Ingall's family have a genetic disease?

Factual Questions
1

Laura Ingall’s mother did have living brothers (one of them
married one of her husband’s sisters, but I digress). However, her only son died in infancy, Laura’s only son died in infance, and Laura’s daughter Rose’s only son died in infancy (her only child, thus ending Laura’s direct line). Has anyone heard any theories as to what was going on? Seems too much to be coincidence.

2

Anybody know Doc Baker’s email address?

3

I don’t THINK it was genetic…but here’s some links that may help:
http://webpages.marshall.edu/~irby1/laura/index.html
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Olympus/1715/lh-links.html
http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Ranch/1203/prairie.htm
http://members.tripod.com/First_Duchess/index.htm
http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Prairie/9760/
http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/4686/liw-lh/

Hope these help!

4

Well, judging from the television show, all of the Ingalls suffered from excessive sappiness. That is not a genetic disorder, but it appears to be heritable.

5

I seem to remember some kind of genetic problem where every time the ratings dropped a child would go blind.

6

I seem to remember some kind of genetic problem where every time the ratings dropped a child would go blind.

7

Actually, Mary (Laura’s sister) went blind from complications from scarlet fever.

The TV show is NOTHING like the books, apart from the characters having the same names.

–tygre

8

Also remember that, genetics or no, deaths in infancy were fairly common in those days, especially on the frontier, where life was harsh and medicine was even less available. A lot of diseases that we now laugh at, like chickenpox and measles, were major killers back then.

9

I heard that all the Ingalls sons died from complications from circumcision.

10

IIRC, Laura’s sister Grace was the only one of Laura’s sisters who had a child of her own - it was a boy, and he died shortly after his birth.

I agree that it was probably just coincidence, that a helluva lot of babies died during this time period. And we probably couldn’t test for the presence for genetic diseases, becasue Ma and Pa Ingalls have no living descendants. Makes you wonder, though, why it was only boys…

11

oh, and didn’t the girl who played Mary on the TV show go blind, just like her character?
Jesus, did some dead Indian put a curse on Pa or something?

12

My thought exactly. I wonder if any of her mother’s sisters
had sons that died in infancy. Sounds like one of these
X-chromosone related conditions like hemophilia to me.

13

Melissa Sue Anderson played Mary. I really don’t think she was ever blind.