Melissa Gilbert, 59, is embracing aging naturally with her lifestyle app Modern Prairie, designed to help older women connect with each other

Melissa Gilbert has launched an app for her lifestyle brand Modern Prairie, aimed at older women.

The 59-year-old Little House On The Prairie star founded Modern Prairie a year ago with retail and merchandising expert Nicole Haase.

“Retail has underestimated women our age – and our ability and desire to spend,” Gilbert said People in an article on Monday. ‘There was very little room for the aging woman. We were either marginalized as an aloof old lady, or as a grumpy old woman you want to avoid. There is clearly so much more to us than that.’

Modern Prairie has also achieved Gilbert’s vision as a “space where women can connect” launched an app.

“Women need to know they are not alone,” Gilbert said of creating community. ‘There is always someone to help us, to walk in front of us, to walk behind us, to hold us up when necessary.

The Los Angeles resident said she uses the app daily.

“I see these women supporting each other as they go through all these extraordinary changes. Women come together to talk about empty nest syndrome, grief, or how to embroider or make the perfect pie crust,” she said.

Gilbert portrayed Laura Ingalls Wilder, aka ‘Half Pint’ in the 1970s NBC series Little House On The Prairie, an adaptation of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s best-selling series of Little House books.

Little House On The Prairie premiered with a pilot film in March 1974 and will celebrate its 50th anniversary next year.

“There are people who will forever assume I’m 12 years old,” Gilbert said. ‘And I will always be that girl, full of wonder and running through the fields. A half pint is always in me. But we’re all getting older.’

The Modern Prairie brand offers apparel and home goods inspired by the Little House values ​​of “love, community and family” and made by women-owned and women-operated businesses.

Gilbert lives on a 14-acre farm in New York with husband Timothy Busfield, 66.

“We just love doing our silly little chores together, like cleaning the chicken coop, making sure they get their treats, and playing with the dogs,” Gilbert said. ‘We play a lot of backgammon. We cook together. And we actually like to sit next to each other in a room, wherever we are. We just really enjoy being together.”

Family Television: A season three still from Little House On The Prairie shows Gilbert as Laura Ingalls Wilder, Michael Landon as Charles Philip Ingalls, Karen Grassle as Caroline Quiner Holbrook Ingalls, Melissa Sue Anderson as Mary Ingalls Kendall and Lindsay Greenbush as Carrie Ingalls

Going strong: Gilbert lives on a 14-acre farm in New York with husband Timothy Busfield, shown in January 2020 in New York City

Gilbert and Busfield have been married since 2013, and she credited him with offering her support as she embraced growing older naturally.

“And when I said, ‘I think I’m going to stop coloring my hair,’ he said, ‘I can’t wait to see what color it is. This is so exciting!” When I said, ”I think I want to have my breast implants removed permanently,” he said, ”Do it!” Gilbert said. “It’s incredibly uplifting to be with someone who says, ‘I love you just the way you are.'”

Both Gilbert and Busfield had just gone through a second divorce with their respective former partners when they started dating.

After getting married, Gilbert and Busfield moved to Howell, Michigan, in August 2013 to a charming, restored Victorian-era home, but later moved to a picturesque 40-acre Catskill Mountain cottage in New York.