Who was this Missouri newspaper columnist?
Her sensible opinions on housekeeping, marriage, husbandry, country life, and, more rarely, on politics and patriotism were expressed in a plain style, with an occasional ecstatic flourish inspired by her love for “the sweet, simple things of life which are the real ones after all.” A work ethic inherited from her Puritan forebears, which exalted labor and self-improvement not merely for their material rewards but as moral values, was, she believed, the key to happiness.
Answer and story below -
Mrs. A. J. Wilder, aka Laura Ingalls Wilder. Story in
The New Yorker