Rachel Calof's Story: Jewish Homesteader on the Northern Plains

What a hard life these people had. I complain if our power goes out during a storm. They had icicles inside their shack in the mornings. All true life accounts of hardships are interesting to read and this was very interesting, especially how they tried to keep the religious aspects of Jewish life. How they ever survived through those day to day hardships on a barren plain is just amazing and Rachel did a great job of documenting it.

Superb historical account of a Jewish girls resilience to trauma whilst staying true to her race and religious convictions, going to a new land to marry a man she had never met and overcoming the problems of living within her fiancé's family.

I loved this book so much I'm going to read it again and again! It's easy to read and tactfully written. It takes you back to that time and place. Lots of emotions while reading.

I read this in hopes of understanding more about my mother's childhood on a farm in Michigan between 1924 and 1940, and this book delivered. Rachel Calof was an earlier Jewish homesteader and North Dakota sounded positively brutal. The essays at the end of the book were very informative and helped me figure out how my grandfather (born in 1886), who was a tailor in Russia close to where Rachel Calof was born, chose to become a farmer around 1913.

Great book. Enjoyed reading about Jewish settlement in North Dakota.