Sarah Vogel: The Farmer’s Lawyer: The North Dakota Nine and the Fight to Save the Family Farm

The Farmer’s Lawyer: The North Dakota Nine and the Fight to Save the Family Farm – Sarah Vogel – Bloomsbury – 9781635575262 – 432 pages – hardcover – $28 – ebook edition available at lower prices – November 2, 2021

Many Americans think of North Dakota and the other prairie states as being conservative culturally and equally unprogressive politically. But that view of these predominantly farming states neglects their long histories of progressive populism that goes back over 100 years. That’s true of North Dakota where the Nonpartisan League was active and strong from the 1920s onward (and into the present, where it still exists as the Democratic NPL — much like the Democratic Farm Labor party in Minnesota that Hubert Humphrey represented.

That history provides the backdrop for Sarah Vogel’s true story in The Farmer’s Lawyer, which tells of a seemingly impossible-to-win legal battle, ironically against the US government agency that was established during the Depression to help family farmers, which by the 1970s was helping to destroy them. At the outset of the Reagan administration (Reagan was helped to be elected, ironically, by the support of midwestern farmers), family farmers of all sizes all across the country were experiencing the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. Land prices, the backbone of farm economics, had gone down, while farm operating costs were up. and interest rates had skyrocketed. At the same time, in many areas, bad weather severely affected crop output.

Because of policies implemented by the Reagan administration, and growing bureaucracy in the Farmers Home Loan administration, many family farmers were being threatened with foreclosure.

At that time, Sarah Vogel, the daughter of a well known Nonpartisan League supporter and lawyer, was herself a young lawyer and single mother was in the process of leaving Washington, D.C., where she had been working for a government agency. Contacted by some desperate farmers from North Dakota who were on the verge of losing their farms, and inspired by her belief in the importance of family farms to American life, she agreed to represent these struggling clients who couldn’t afford to pay her.

In the midst of her own personal issues, but supported by her family and friends, Vogel brought a national class action lawsuit against the FHLA, which meant she would have to fight against the full force of the Reagan administration’s Department of Justice, in behalf of these family farmers’ Constitutional rights. As a young lawyer who had never privately practiced before, this was her first case!

This book tells the entire years-long saga in incredible detail, brought to life by Sarah Vogel’s writing skill and storytelling prowess. It’s difficult to imagine a true-to-life legal story that has nothing to do with murder or mayhem being a page-turner, but this book will keep you fully engaged throughout. And it will remind you of how difficult it is for “the little guys” to fight against entrenched bureaucracies, especially the Federal government. It is a heroic story for sure, and credits not only Sarah, but her father, and all the farmers she worked with, who would simply never quit, and whose stolidity made such a huge difference, not only to the outcome of their own case, but for many others that followed them.

This is a story about courage, justice, commitment, and belief in oneself. And it is important for us to be reminded that Americans can stand together for the good of all, especially now, when we can agree on virtually nothing. It is an inspiring journey I appreciated learning about. This is a terrific book, and I think we had a terrific conversation as well.

Sarah Vogel is an attorney and former politician whose career has focused on family farmers and ranchers. Vogel was the first woman in U.S. history to be elected as a state commissioner of agriculture. In 2006, the American Agricultural Law Association awarded her its Distinguished Service Award for contributions to the field of agriculture law, and Willie Nelson honored her at Farm Aid’s thirtieth anniversary in 2015 for her service to farmers. She is an advocate for Native American rights and lives in Bismarck, North Dakota.

“Sarah’s story, told in her unique voice, inspires me–and I’m sure it will inspire you–to fight for family farmers.” –Willie Nelson

Author website here.

Buy the book here.

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Melanie Hoffert: Prairie Silence: A Memoir

978-0807044735 – Beacon Press – hardcover –  $24.95
(ebook editions available at lower prices)

Melanie Hoffert’s Prairie Silence is about growing up on the prairie of North Dakota.  The silence she talks about is most often her own, though there are many other kinds of silences in the small town she grew up in.  Her story is about growing up gay in a place that seems alien to her, in a family she felt she could reveal her true self to (until much later in her life after she had moved away – her eventual coming out story is just emblematic of the awkwardness that she mostly recognizes now was projected rather than felt).

Now living in Minneapolis, Hoffert feels the need to return home to her family farm, to work with her farmer father and brother, reconnect to her mother, and to better understand the place she came from.  Interacting for a solid period of time with family, friends and neighbors gives the book its narrative, and places her in the complicated nexus of self, place and other.

Prairie Silence is a warm, sometimes surprising memoir that combines an internal voice with a clear eyed reflection of the northern plains we often call the “heartland,” whose residents often and perhaps ironically, have terrible challenges connecting with their own hearts and souls, and thus are unable to sympathize with the hearts of others, especially those who don’t share their own values.   But as she learns more about the people she left behind, Hoffert does find connections, and real ones, with many of those to whom she could not trust to reveal herself.

Hoffert’s prose is plainspoken and clear, just as she was in her interview with me about this strong debut work of nonfiction.  A warm and loving memoir I highly recommend and an excellent introduction to a fine new writer.

Melanie has an MFA in creative writing from Hamline University, and her work has appeared in several literary journals. She received the 2005 Creative Nonfiction Award from the Baltimore Review and the 2010 Creative Nonfiction Award from New Millennium Writings. Since 2008 she has worked for Teach For America as managing director of TFANet, the online social-networking hub for their corps members and alumni.

Author website here.

“Sometimes at dusk, when the world is purple, I go searching for elements of a small town in the city. I usually walk down alleys, where yellow light spills from the back of houses onto piles of dusty red bricks and onto old lumber; where forgotten white Christmas lights crawl like vines over many of the fences; where junk cars sit as if in a museum; and recycling bins display the ingredients of meals consumed weeks ago. In alleys people do not have a need to present a manicured life and I feel closer to the neighbors I will never know. In these alleys, where the roads are narrow and life is presented as it is lived—messy and whimsical—I see glimpses of what I left behind.”

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