'Little House on the Prairie' star breaks silence on the story she couldn't tell

Karen Grassle has revealed that producers shot down her idea to give her character a nervous breakdown in Little House on the Prairie.

For those unaware, one famous image of American history is the strong frontier woman working hard with her husband while also taking care of the home and family and Little House on the Prairie showed some of this life in a more real way.

However, there were still some things the show would not depict. One of these was the idea of Caroline Inglass having a nervous breakdown.

Grassle, who played the role of Caroline Inglass, recently answered fan questions on the official Little House on the Prairie TikTok account.

Someone asked, "If you could create one storyline for your character that never happened, what would it be?"

Responding to the question, the 83-year-old actress said, "I did create a storyline that I wanted us to do."

She went on to explain that her idea was that "when tremendous amounts of pressure came to bear on Caroline. Let's say a dust storm or the crops were all eaten by the bugs or whatever, and that she had a nervous breakdown. This was not uncommon."

"The pressures on the pioneer women were so intense that sometimes they did have nervous breakdowns. But, of course, the producers didn't want Caroline to have a nervous breakdown,” Grassle, the Battered star, noted.