When Caroline was 5, her father died while serving as second mate on a ship that capsized and sank on Lake Michigan near the Straits of Mackinac.

[3] Together they had five children: Mary Amelia, Laura Elizabeth, Caroline Celestia (Carrie), Charles Frederick (Freddie), and Grace Pearl.

The Ingalls family traveled by covered wagon from Wisconsin; Kansas (Indian Territory); Burr Oak, Iowa; and Minnesota.

After arriving in De Smet, Caroline and the Ingalls family lived in the home of the local surveyor as well as a store in the downtown area, before homesteading just outside town on a farm by Silver Lake.

[8] Following her husband's death from heart disease in 1902 at age 66, Ingalls and her oldest daughter, Mary, rented one of the rooms for extra income.