‘Little House on the Prairie’ actor dead: Hersha Parady was 78

Hersha Parady, who starred as schoolteacher Alice Garvey on the hit NBC show “Little House on the Prairie,” died Wednesday at the age of 78.

Parady passed away at the Norfolk, Virginia, home of her son, Jonathan Peverall, after suffering from a brain tumor that was revealed in July, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

In an effort to help cover expenses of his mother’s hospital bills, Peverall set up a GoFundMe page at that time, raising $20,482.

“Hersha, who has always been an active and outgoing woman, is battling a tough medical condition – a brain tumor known as meningioma,” wrote Peverall. “This illness has robbed her of her strength, her memory, and sadly, her vibrant personality. She has become largely bedridden, and it is very difficult to see my Mom, who was once full of life and energy, now struggling with basic daily activities.”

Peverall revealed that he and his family managed to move his declining mother to his family’s home in Virginia and sought the best care possible.

“From moving expenses to in-home nursing care, to medical equipment and more, the financial burden is significant,” continued Peverall. “And with a full-time job and three kids, providing her with the level of care she needs is difficult.”

The Post reached out to Parady’s son for further comment.

Parady rose to fame in the late 1970s when she joined Season 4 of “Little House on the Prairie” as Garvey, alongside former NFL star Merlin Olsen, who played her onscreen husband, Jonathan Garvey.

The actress remained with the show for 35 episodes until her character was killed off in the sixth season, at which time she met a grizzly end in a schoolhouse fire attempting to rescue the infant son of characters Mary and Adam (played by Melissa Sue Anderson and Linwood Boomer).

After the highly popular episode aired, some “Prairie” fans were convinced that Parady had used a doll as a means to smash a locked window.

“They did not rig the windows to break easily and I’m not, as [series star] Michael Landon pointed out a lot, a meek, delicate woman, so when I try to bust something, I usually succeed,” Parady once commented during an interview, according to the Hollywood Reporter. “It was Michael himself who first mentioned that it looked like I was trying to use Mary’s baby as a battering ram to bust the window!

“So because they’d forgotten to ‘break away’ the windows, I was determined to get out whatever the cost,” joked the actress. “In spite of the impending doom it would bring, at least I went out with a roar and not a whimper!”

Born Betty Sandhoff in 1945, the Ohio native claimed that she was destined to be an actress from a young age.

“I was always a child living in the world of pretend,” Parady told the Cleveland Plain Dealer in 1975. “Even when I was very little, I much preferred to make believe rather than play with dolls.”

On television, Parady also appeared in series including “Mannix,” “Unsolved Mysteries” and “Second Noah,” among other shows, and her film work included 1995’s “The Break” — opposite Martin Sheen, Vincent Van Patten, Valerie Perrine and Rae Dawn Chong — and 1984’s “Courage.”