In 1894, a Jewish immigrant moved to North Dakota hoping for a new life after marriage. 42 years later, her memoir became a rare surviving record of Jewish homesteader life

For Rachel Bella Kahn, America did not begin with a comfortable new home or an easy start. In 1894, the 18-year-old Jewish immigrant travelled from Russia to the United States for an arranged marriage to Abraham Calof, a man she had never met. Soon after arriving, she followed him to North Dakota, where the couple tried to build a future as homesteaders near Devils Lake. Decades later, her handwritten account would preserve details of a Jewish farming community that had largely disappeared.

From Russia to the North Dakota prairie

Rachel was born in Russia in 1876 and lost her mother when she was only four. She later lived with relatives before making the long journey to America. Abraham and several of his relatives had already gone to North Dakota, where Jewish immigrants were taking up homestead land.

The Calofs joined that effort, but the reality was far removed from the promise of starting a new life. Their first homes were small, basic shacks, and the family often had to manage with very little money, food and fuel. During the cold months, relatives and livestock could end up sharing the same cramped space.


Rachel also had to maintain Jewish traditions in a place where obtaining kosher food and observing religious practices could be difficult. Yet the family gradually established itself in the area.

The National Park Service says Rachel and Abraham spent 23 years on the North Dakota prairie. Rachel gave birth to nine children, all of whom survived despite illnesses and accidents. The couple also helped establish the first organized school district in their area and later received letters of commendation from Presidents William Howard Taft and Woodrow Wilson.

A Jewish community that did not last

The Calofs were part of a wider Jewish homesteading movement in the region. The Garske Colony, established in 1883, attracted Jewish immigrants who were trying farming in an unfamiliar environment. A Jewish settlement also developed around Devils Lake, but these rural communities did not last for generations.

The Garske Colony survived until about 1920, while many Jewish farmers eventually moved to towns and cities. A 2014 report by the Grand Forks Herald noted that the old Sons of Jacob Cemetery near Garske had been largely forgotten, with only a small number of marked graves remaining.

Rachel and Abraham themselves left the farm in 1917 and moved to St. Paul, Minnesota. The life they had built in North Dakota was already becoming part of the past.

She wrote it all down in 1936

Nearly two decades after leaving North Dakota, Rachel began writing her memories in 1936. She wrote the account in Yiddish by hand, looking back on her childhood, marriage and years as a homesteader.

One line from her memoir gives a sense of what everyday life had been like: “Of all the privations I knew as a homesteader, the lack of privacy was the hardest to bear.”

Her manuscript, titled My Story, remained unpublished for decades. It eventually reached the American Jewish Archives in Cincinnati and was discovered in the early 1990s. In 1995, Indiana University Press published it as Rachel Calof’s Story: Jewish Homesteader on the Northern Plains, edited by J. Sanford Rikoon.

The memoir became more than one woman's recollection of a difficult marriage and farm life. It also became a record of Jewish immigrants trying to make homes, observe their traditions and raise families on the North Dakota prairie.

Much of that rural Jewish world later faded away. What remained were scattered cemeteries, family memories and Rachel Calof's account, written years after she had left the place behind.