The Original Text of Rachel Calof's Memoir (In Search of ...‪)‬

Written in Yiddish in the 1930S, Rachel Calof's Story: Jewish Homesteader on the Northern Plains was published in an English translation by Indiana University Press in 1995. It was immediately recognized as a unique immigrant narrative, and, reflecting its qualities as an illuminating source, was adopted for use in many college courses. A nearly universal positive reception among both academic and nonacademic audiences supported five editions by 2002, with a publication run of more than 11,000 paperback copies. (1) However, scrutiny of the English translation of Calof's memoir suggested to this writer that it was somehow untrue to the original. Rather than the sixty-seven pages in length claimed for the manuscript by the Indiana University Press edition, examination of a copy of the manuscript at the Jewish Historical Society of the Upper Midwest revealed that it is actually more than 250 pages long. In addition, a mysterious, undated, and unaddressed letter from Calof's son, Jacob, in an unorganized file at the same location, revealed that, when he received the manuscript following the death of his sister Elizabeth, it contained "to my surprise, these pages.... I can only surmise that she may have begun to write her memoirs on another occasion and that these pages are part of that endeavor." What exactly Jacob Calof meant by "these pages" is impossible to discern, but his reference leads one to wonder whether Rachel Calof's work was even greater in length than the manuscript's 250 pages.