Laura’s Sister, Mary
Whether you read Laura’s memoirs or watched the television series, you know that Laura’s older sister, Mary, went blind. In her book, By the Shores of Silver Lake, Laura states Mary had Scarlet Fever. It was that year, in Mary’s early teens, that she went blind. In real life, while Mary did endure Scarlet Fever, it was not in 1879 when she lost her eyesight. Mary was actually much younger when she became ill with Scarlet Fever. While Mary did become ill the same year she lost her eyesight, Laura’s autobiography does not state the cause was Scarlet Fever.
While no one is 100 percent sure what happened to cause Mary to lose her eyesight, we do know it was some sort of illness, but not Scarlet Fever. The year the book, By the Shores of Silver Lake, was published, Laura wrote a letter to her daughter, Rose, discussing the incident. While Laura did not specifically state the reason, she did tell Rose it had to do with some type of spinal illness. Laura further wrote to Rose that Mary saw a specialist in Chicago, who informed the family there was no hope as the nerves in the eyes were paralyzed.
Some sources claim that Mary suffered a stroke, which caused her to lose her eyesight. Whatever the cause is, today doctors have looked into the reason why Mary lost her eyesight and claim that Scarlet Fever could not be the reason. One doctor states that in Laura’s autobiography, Prairie Girl, she does not say that Mary got a rash the year she lost her eyesight. One sure sign of Scarlet Fever is a rash, which means if Mary did not have a rash, she did not have Scarlet Fever. No matter the reasoning, one thing the books, television series, and Laura’s real-life agree on is that Mary did go to blind school.