- - “Little House on the Prairie” child star reflects on leaving the series: 'That was really hard for me'

Raechal ShewfeltDecember 30, 2025 at 8:27 AM

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Rachel and Sidney Greenbush shared the 'Little House' role of Carrie Ingalls

Little House on the Prairie alum Rachel Greenbush, who shared the role of Carrie Ingalls with her twin sister Sidney, had an especially tough time leaving Walnut Grove.

After all, the child actress took on the part of the younger sister of Laura (Melissa Gilbert) and Mary (Melissa Sue Anderson), and the daughter of Michael Landon's Charles and Karen Grassle's Caroline, when she was just 3 in 1974. Her departure after the eighth season, when she was 12, in 1982, meant that she had to leave her on-set school and the people she had seen every day for as long as she could remember.

"I don't think I really realized how much it affected me until I was much older and went on the journey of reconciliation and self-discovery," Greenbush, who was credited on the show, along with her sister, as Lindsay Sidney Greenbush, said, per PEOPLE, on Dec. 12 at the Little House Final 50th Anniversary Reunion at the Strathearn Historical Park in Simi Valley, Calif. "Everybody separated and I didn't see anybody. And that was really hard for me personally because I didn't realize how connected I had been to everybody until years later."

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"It's almost a tragic loss, but I wouldn't let myself acknowledge it," Greenbush said, "because I was like, 'But this is the profession. This is what we do.' You make these really deep, intense bonds working with each other every single day and then when it's over, you're just supposed to be like, 'Okay, that was nice. Bye.' And it's really hard that way."

The family drama continued for one more season, but the focus shifted to the family that a grown-up Laura was raising with her husband, Almanzo. Not as many Ingalls family members were needed.

"It's a really strange thing about acting and all actors know it, that it's not forever, that you don't know if it's going to get renewed for another season," Greenbush said. "You're always on pins and needles, 'Are we coming back? Are we not coming back?'"

So while everyone knows the job will be over one day, "Your heart feels like it's never going to end. This is never going to end," added Greenbush, whose credits ended with the hit based on author Laura Ingalls Wilder's series of books about growing up in the late 1800s.

Loreen Sarkis/Getty

Rachel Greenbush attends 'A Little House Christmas' in 2016

In the case of Little House, of course, it continues to live on, with reruns, books, podcasts, and cast reunions, such as the ones the cast held this year to mark 50 years of the show.

And it's a phenomenon that's not going away.

A Netflix reboot of the series is in the works, which Gilbert herself has endorsed.

"I think there's room in the Little House universe for all different kinds of stories to be told — just like there was always room in the Little Women universe to keep retelling that story," the actress told Entertainment Weekly in February.

on Entertainment Weekly

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