the hard physical labor associated with wheat farming in South Dakota, combined with a lengthy drought in the late 1880s and early 1890s, further contributed to the Wilders' downward spiral into insolvency.. The year 1889 proved the breaking point for the Wilders. In early August, Laura gave birth to a son. The child remained unnamed when, two weeks later, he suddenly died of "convulsions." Laura Ingalls Wilder never spoke of his death, and the couple did not have another child. In the same month, the little family lost their home to a fire and their crops to drought. According to Rose Wilder Lane, "It took seven successive years of complete crop failure, with work, weather and sickness that wrecked his health permanently, and interest rates of 36 per cent on money borrowed to buy food, to dislodge us from that land." In 1890, the Wilder family moved to Spring Valley, Minnesota, to stay with his parents on their farm. It was a time of rest and recovery for the weary family. Between 1891 and 1892, the family again moved, this time to Westville, Florida. They hoped a warmer climate would help Wilder regain his strength. Ultimately, while the warmer temperatures did help him recover, his wife did not like the humid climate or the customs of the backwoods locals. They returned to De Smet in 1892, and rented a small house in town. Between 1892 and 1894, the Wilders lived in De Smet, with the Ingalls family nearby. Laura Ingalls Wilder worked as a seamstress in a dressmaker's shop, while Wilder found work as a carpenter and day laborer. Together, they practiced frugality and carefully saved their money. Settling in Missouri and later years On July 17, 1894, the Wilders left De Smet for the Ozarks of Missouri by covered wagon, attracted by brochures of "The Land of the Big Red Apple" and stories of a local man who had traveled to Missouri to see the area for himself. On August 31, they arrived near Mansfield, Missouri, and Wilder placed a $100 down payment on 40 acres (16.2 ha) of hilly, rocky undeveloped land that his wife aptly named "Rocky Ridge Farm." The farm would be the couple's final home. Over the span of 20 years, Wilder built his wife what she later referred to as her dream house: a unique 10-room home in which he custom-built kitchen cabinets to