During The Great Depression, the late Erling Rolfsrud wrote and sold stories to magazines. He dashed them off on a typewriter in a farm shed in western North Dakota and mailed them anywhere he thought they might be published. I have a box of Dad's notes and check stubs from the era, recently delivered to me by my sister, Sosie, who has been instructed to peruse and organize some of mother's closets.
The box also has a touching exchange of letters, spanning 30 years, between Erling and his only brother, Halvor. Halvor, who 
never reached ninth grade, ran the family farm and became a respected state senator, among many other things. He had some success at farming and invested wisely in a number of businesses. He was also Erling's banker and constantly loaned him money. The typed letters always begin, "Dear Brother," and what follows is respectful prose, often with Dad worried that he should be paying interest on money he borrowed to pay his bookbinders, and Halvor gently discouraging it. "You shouldn't charge interest to a brother," he wrote. "The money wasn't being used anyway."
never reached ninth grade, ran the family farm and became a respected state senator, among many other things. He had some success at farming and invested wisely in a number of businesses. He was also Erling's banker and constantly loaned him money. The typed letters always begin, "Dear Brother," and what follows is respectful prose, often with Dad worried that he should be paying interest on money he borrowed to pay his bookbinders, and Halvor gently discouraging it. "You shouldn't charge interest to a brother," he wrote. "The money wasn't being used anyway."The big brother gave advice too, notably when Erling was having difficulty selling the little rural Deerwood house and barn and writing quarters. An avid newspaper reader, Halvor suggested advertising Dad's little spread in Minneapolis and Chicago papers where some "city slicker" might want a hobby farm. That was in 1950. "It is easier to buy something than to sell something," Halvor sagely added.
A little black book documents 1932-33 income for stories like "Twinkey," Bobbie's Cold," "Cow With The Crooked Horns," "Two Riddle Rhymes," and so on. Typical income was about a dollar for each. The rejection letters Dad received were terse but polite, often printed or mimeographed forms from the editors of magazines like "Play Mate" (huh? No, really, actual playmates, as in children, not Hefnerites.) And Grit and others.
But one Chicago editor took the time to append a personal note, explaining why his company was turning down Dad's submission: "We've run two or three rattlesnake stories recently, and will have to lay off this topic for a while," he confided. "Women readers are not partial to snake yarns."
