The character Miss Eva Beadle was a very popular one on the Little House on the Prairie TV show. She was the teacher at the schoolhouse for Walnut Grove, teaching Laura, Mary and the other children for many years (for the first four seasons on the show) until she eventually married and then moved away.
There was a real Miss Beadle that Laura wrote about in the Little House books, appearing in On the Banks of Plum Creek. In the books Laura only referred to the teacher as simply Teacher, but she did make reference to the fact she lived at a store owned by a “Mr. Beadle,” when she and Mary needed to buy a slate pencil to go with their new slate.
Mary had a penny, and Laura had a penny, but they needed only one slate pencil. So they decided that Mary would spend her penny for the pencil, and after that she would own half of Laura’s penny. Next morning they bought the pencil, but they did not buy it from Mr. Oleson. They bought it at Mr. Beadle’s store and post-office, where Teacher lived, and that morning they walked on to school with Teacher.
- Chapter 21 Nellie Oleson, On the Banks of Plum Creek
We believe the teacher’s last name was actually Bedal, as we know from Walnut Grove history about the Bedal family and was actually part of renaming it to Walnut Grove from the former Walnut Station. Lafeyette Bedal, who was the first postmaster for the village, opened his living room for the school to begin.
- Stewart, Charlotte (Author)
- English (Publication Language)
- 326 Pages - 04/07/2016 (Publication Date) - BearManor Media (Publisher)
