Sept. 20, 2025
LA CROSSE, Wis. — Nearly two decades after Doris Michelson joined the Mississippi Valley Conservancy, her children have fulfilled her dream of protecting the family’s historic farm in La Crosse County through a conservation easement.
Michelson signed up for a membership to the land trust on Jan. 22, 2004, motivated by a desire to preserve the farmland she had called home since 1943. The property had been in the Michelson family since 1879.
“It is very good land, and the family wants to keep it,” Michelson once said. “My husband and I arranged family picnics to different locations around this farm. That is one of many reasons each one of our children is devoted to it.”
Doris passed away in 2020 at the age of 103, without realizing her goal of protecting the land from development. This summer, her five children — Jim, Bob, Mary, Elizabeth and Steve — made that vision a reality by working with the Conservancy to convey a conservation easement in memory of their parents.
The easement ensures the land will remain in agricultural production and limits future construction and subdivision, regardless of ownership. The farm will continue to be privately owned.
Abbie Church, conservation director for the Conservancy, praised the property’s ecological and agricultural value.
“The soils on this farm are ideal for agricultural use, with some silt loam soils designated as prime farmland and others as farmland of statewide importance according to the federal register,” Church said.
She noted the family’s recent pollinator planting, which includes yellow coneflowers, bergamot, black-eyed Susan and other native wildflowers to support bees, butterflies and other wildlife.
“The Michelson’s farm also includes diverse woodlands, home to indigo bunting, scarlet tanager, and Baltimore orioles and a winding creek designated as a class I trout stream,” Church said. “The songbirds calling on the property are also noted in Doris’ memoirs; it was a delight to be able to visit the farm through her stories and memories.”
Doris kept detailed records of her life on the farm, often reflecting on the changing seasons and wildlife she observed from her kitchen window.
“From my kitchen window, I gaze out over the ever-changing seasonal scenery,” she wrote. “Here I see the bare dark branches of winter, often covered with snow, change to the buds growing into the new leaves in spring and summer. Later they turn into the glorious reds, yellows, and gold of the fall.”
“I have seen deer, coyotes, hawks, buzzards, eagles and turkeys as well as our domestic animals from this vantage point,” she added. “One evening several years ago I looked up from the sink to see a pretty doe gazing at me with inquiring eyes.”
The farm was also a hub of activity and learning for the Michelson children.
“When the children were growing up, we lived a busy farm life,” Doris wrote. “We had cows, hogs, and sometimes chickens. We raised hay, corn, tobacco and strawberries to sell, so there was always plenty to do.”
“From the time the children were quite small they loved going to the barn to ‘help’ at chore time,” she recalled. “They learned to shake up the bedding and put the milking machine straps on and take them off of the cows. They learned to wash the cows’ udders for milking and eventually how to put the milking machines on and off and feed the cows.”
The new easement joins two other adjacent properties protected by the Conservancy, creating a corridor of nearly 300 acres of conserved farmland. The effort supports goals outlined in the Town of Hamilton and La Crosse County comprehensive plans to preserve open space and agricultural lands.
To learn more about conservation easements that protect farmland, woods, wetlands, prairies and blufflands, visit MississippiValleyConservancy.org.
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