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. Three different girls from Laura Ingalls Wilder's childhood — Nellie Owens, Genevieve Masters and Stella Gilbert — were the basis for the fictional Nellie Oleson. Character sources Nellie Owens Owens was born on August 2, 1869, two years after Laura Ingalls. Nellie's parents, William (1836–1920) and Margaret (1836–1908) Owens did, as Ingalls describes, run the local mercantile in Walnut Grove, Minnesota. Later in her life, around 1883, the Owens family moved to California; probably via the Oregon Trail. In 1891 they went to Tillamook, Oregon, where Nellie taught school and in 1893 married Henry Francis Kirry (1869–1951). They moved to Bay City, Oregon and had three children; Zola (1894–1986), Lloyd (1896–1961) and Leslie (1900–1931). Soon, the Kirries changed their home again by moving to Rainier, Oregon in 1899. 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 and is buried in Forest View Cemetery in Forest Grove, Oregon. Genevieve Masters 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