Nellie Oleson
| Nellie Oleson | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Little House on the Prairie character | |||||||||
| Portrayed by | Alison Arngrim | ||||||||
| First appearance | 1.02 Country Girls | ||||||||
| Last appearance | 9.08 The Return of Nellie | ||||||||
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| Parents | Harriet and Nels Oleson |
|---|---|
| Siblings |
Willie Oleson (brother) Nancy Oleson (adopted sister) |
| Spouse | Percival Dalton |
| Children | Jennifer and Benjamin Dalton |
Nellie Oleson is a fictional character in the Little House series of autobiographical children's novels written by Laura Ingalls Wilder. She was portrayed by Alison Arngrim in the NBC television show Little House on the Prairie (1974 to 1983), where her role is much expanded.
The character "Nellie Oleson" was based on three different girls from Laura Ingalls Wilder's childhood.
Owens was born on August 2, 1868, two years after Laura Ingalls. She had a younger brother, Willie, played by Jonathan Gilbert in the television series. Nellie's parents, William and Margaret Owens (renamed Nels and Harriet Oleson in the television series; called only "Mr. and Mrs. Oleson" in the books), did, as Laura describes, run the local mercantile in Walnut Grove, Minnesota. Nellie Owens, and possibly two other girls, are the basis for the fictional Nellie Oleson.
Later in her life, Owens moved to California and then to Oregon, where she married Henry Kirry and had three children, Zola, Lloyd, and Leslie. Her brother Willie went blind from a firecracker explosion, attended a school for the blind, married, and also had three children. There seems to be no indication that Laura ever saw Nellie Owens again after Laura's family left Walnut Grove in 1879. Nellie died on November 2, 1949 in Oregon.
The second girl, Genevieve Masters, was born November 12, 1867 in Hornby, Steuben County, New York and was the spoiled daughter of a former teacher of Laura's. Genevieve wore beautifully tailored clothes and had striking blonde curly hair, just as "Nellie Oleson" had. Genevieve boasted continually about how much more proper and "civilized" things were in the "East". With her superior attitude, Genevieve was far nastier than Nellie Owens had been, and Laura and Genevieve became keen rivals, both academically and socially. Gennie's family moved to De Smet not long after the Ingalls family, but the Owens family did not move. Therefore, the "Nellie" of Little Town on the Prairie is most likely Genevieve Masters. In her "Letter to Children" written late in her life (a sort of form letter sent to the hundreds of children who wrote her monthly), Laura stated: "Nellie Oleson . . . moved back East, and did not live many years." Laura was evidently referring to Genevieve Masters in this letter as Nellie Owens lived to the age of 80. Genevieve died of pneumonia November 7, 1909 in Chicago, just 5 days before her 42nd birthday. She married William Graham V. Renwick and had one daughter, Margaret.
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