E17S4  When Windfalls and Riches Await

At first, Erika Bolstad knew only one thing about her great-Grandmother, Anna: she was a homesteader on the North Dakota prairies in the early 1900s before her husband committed her to an asylum under mysterious circumstances. As Erika’s mother was dying, she revealed more. Their family still owned the mineral rights to Anna’s land—and oil companies were interested in the black gold beneath the prairies. Their family, Erika learned, could get rich thanks to the legacy of a woman nearly lost to history. Thus, began Erika’s journey into the past. She joins Russell and Alan to share her discoveries, which she also relates in her memoir, “Windfall: The Prairie Woman Who Lost Her Way and the Great-Granddaughter Who Found Her.”