Old Town in the Green Groves, by Cynthia Rylant, is a novel based on some notes left by Laura Ingalls Wilder and a general knowledge about her life and the times.

In the Little House books, which are not strictly autobiographical and include alterations to the actual chronology of events, this period in Wilder's life is abridged and condensed.

Having endured several years of poor crops and mounting debts in Walnut Grove, the Ingalls family decides to sell their farm and move to Burr Oak, Iowa, where Pa has a job offer to help to run a hotel in town.

On the way to Iowa, they stay for some time with relatives in South Troy, Minnesota, where Charles dies at 9 months of age on August 27, 1876.

Finally, the Ingalls family recovers enough to move west once more, back to Minnesota, and then onto Dakota Territory, where By the Shores of Silver Lake is largely set.