Notes for: Charles Frederick INGALLS

Infant brother of Laura Ingalls Wilder, called Freddie by the family. Laura did not include Freddie in her "Little House" novels because, her biographers assume, the memories were too painful. He lived in the period between "On the Banks of Plum Creek" and "By the Shores of Silver Lake." Laura rarely spoke of him, although later in her life she did say he had never been a healthy baby, and suffered convulsions before he died. Late in her life, Caroline Ingalls said, "Everything would have been different if Freddie had lived."

However, Freddie's brief life and death were dramatized on the "Little House" TV series (the episode, titled "The Lord is my Shepherd," aired on December 18, 1974, with guest star Ernest Borgnine). Freddie was buried on the farm of Peter Ingalls (Pa's brother), where the family was living at the time. The farm no longer exists and his exact grave location is unknown today.