Rachel Bella Kahn, an 18-year-old Jewish girl living in Russia, immigrated to the United States in 1894. Her mother had died when she was four, and her life in Russia became one of physical hardship and psychological abuse. Abraham Calof, who had earlier come from the same area to the United States, was in need of a wife, and paid for her passage overseas. Soon after her arrival in New York, he took her to the family homestead near Devil's Lake, North Dakota, where they joined Abraham's brothers and parents on adjoining claims. The years that followed involved a struggle to find enough to eat, to devise ways of keeping warm and clean, and to abide by the "laws" of her religious faith, despite the negative impact that it had on her life in both Russia and the United States. .
The Jewish faith was a key element in the life of Rachel Bella Calof in Russia and the United States. Rachel's grandfather was very strict and a religious fanatic, and she was required to abide by the laws, beliefs, and superstitions of her faith; it was this which brought her great anguish and despair several times during her life. This first becomes apparent when Rachel is denied her first chance to experience love while living with her aunt in the Russian city of Belaya Tserkov. While living with her aunt and working as her maid, one of Rachel's duties included buying meat at the butcher shop. The butcher had a good-looking son, who was a few years older than Rachel, and they were immediately drawn to each other. Soon, they fell in love, prompting the boy to write Rachel's grandfather for permission to call on her and marry her. However, those who engaged in the occupations of butcher, tailor, shoemaker, or musician were considered hardly better than convicts and socially unacceptable at that time in Russia. Rachel was the granddaughter of Eda Velvel Cohen, a religious leader of the local Orthodox community, and marrying someone beneath the family's social class would violate societal norms related to the social status, specifically the family's ties to the religious leaders.