Tonight, I am driving with my wife to The Blennerhassett Hotel in West Virginia. There, we slumber and wake early tomorrow to continue to Cincinnati, OH. I wish the trip was under better circumstances, but it’s to attend the funeral of my grandmother. She may be gone but the legacy she left will be remembered far past my life.
“It would break my heart if it was developed for any other purpose. This way, it is a comfort to know that whatever happens to me, this beautiful property will remain.” — Marie Holscher
Marie Holscher, on the farm. Courtesy of Xavier
It will remain untouched. It’s a beautiful property with towering trees and a lake where I fished growing up when we’d pile in the car for a visit. In addition to being beautiful, the farm is used as a farm.
In 2007, my father worked with her to get the property and house protected for the future. The Clermont Sun wrote about the easement. Monroe Township resident donates agricultural easement
Not just 42 acres of woodlands and farm fields (the farm produces profitable corn and soybean crops), the Holscher farm is also home to the Aaron Fagin House, built in 1832, that is listed with the National Register of Historic Places. The Fagin House has had only four owners in its 175-year history.
She wanted the house and land to remain after she passed. And it will. It will not turn into a strip mall or housing development.
“My husband (who died in 1957) and I bought the farm and moved here in 1950,” Holscher said. “It has been in our family ever since that time and is a much cherished home. It is important to me to preserve this house and its surrounding acres just as it is right now. Hopefully, the easement will accomplish that.”
I haven’t been to the farm in years. But I am looking forward to walking through the expansive lawn to the lake and towering pine trees. Even thought she has passed, her legacy will outlast my father and myself. It will remain a pristine part of the world. Nor a parking lot. Nor a mall. It will remain farmland and a legacy.