LISBON — Steve and Doris McElmeel had carved out a little slice of heaven for themselves on 15 acres in the northwest corner of Lisbon.
“This was our happy place,” Steve said.
It was a little farm — something Doris had always longed for, growing up on a farm near Fillmore between Cascade and Dubuque in Dubuque County. It was an idyllic upbringing full of farm chores and games like Fox and Geese, hay rides, sledding and listening to Brooklyn Dodgers baseball games and Gene Autry singing in the radio while milking the cows by hand.
Steve and Doris made an equally idyllic setting to raise a family. They and their four children grew crops, raised sheep and had horses.
“She (Doris) liked to raise sheep and the daughter wanted horses. So I became a livestock farmer,” he said with a chuckle.
Steve and Doris lived there together 51 years, from 1965 until Doris passed away in 2016 — nine years ago this Christmas Eve.
Steve still wants to make it a happy place for others too.
To that end, he and his adult children have formed a private nonprofit organization and created Pleasant Grove Heritage Park.
While it’s a lifetime of memories for Steve and his family, the farm is also a slice of Iowa history. The farm dates back to the 1860s; several of the barns and out buildings are more than 150 years old and are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
“There’s so much here,” Steve said. “It’s a mecca of history.”
He’s working to restore and preserve those barns and turn about 10 acres of the land into prairie. It also has a good-sized pond. The site’s already being used for school field trips, nature studies and neighbors have been known to wet a fishing line in the pond once in a while.
He and his family have developed a website to promote the project, linked here. The website includes the project history, detailed development plans and donation information. They’ve garnered support in one form or another from many different individuals, organizations and foundations, and formed a group of friends who receive regular newsletters on news and events about the site.
“Plans are underway to develop the park and rehabilitate the barns with the assistance of numerous volunteers along with grants and donations,” according to a statement on the organization’s webpage.
According to a history of Pleasant Grove on the nonprofit’s website, it began as a family farm owned by John and Mary Ringer in 1860. Jacob E. and Amanda Meyers bought it in 1881. The family farmed it themselves until 1940, when son John Meyers retired. The land was rented out to local farmers for many years. Family descendants support the park project.
The McElmeels bought the home on the property in 1965. Steve and Doris had been married for a year, after Steve’s service in the U.S. Army. They moved to Lisbon from Cedar Rapids where Steve worked for the Square D electrical switchgear firm, and later Iowa Electric Light & Power Co., from which he retired after many years.
Steve said his wife had her eyes on the home on the Meyers property and they bought it as soon as it came on the market. They also were interested in farming and completed acquisition of the full 15 acres from John Meyers by 1981.
The City of Lisbon considered taking on the project as a city park in 2018. But after the 2020 derecho and subsequent severe weather, the old farm buildings’ conditions became a liability concern for the city. In 2024, the family formed a nonprofit to take on the project.
“I could have sold this for a fortune” for private development, McElmeel said. “But my wife and I lived here for years and just could not see it being developed. I want this park to be an asset to Lisbon, an asset to southeast Linn County and area around.”
The best testimonial, and greatest gratification, McElmeel can see from his efforts is the reaction from kids visiting the park.
“The whole third grade from school hiked over two blocks, walked through the park,” he said. “They’re just so enthusiastic and full of life.” One of the teachers donated a wind chime to the park. When he installed it, the teacher asked him to tell the kids the story of the park.
”That’s what I want to see,” he said. “I want to see kids down there fishing, I want to see people enjoying those barns to look at history and see how we got where we are. And how many towns have a set of farm buildings intact to tell the story of agriculture?”
He said it will be similar to independently operated Indian Creek Nature Center in Cedar Rapids. “It’s open to the public. It’s a gift to Lisbon. That the way I wanted it to be,” and that the way it’s being depicted to donors. “We are doing everything we can to make it an attraction for the school kids, for history buffs with the barns, or naturalists for the prairie grass. We are open for donations, we’re open for grants.” A community day in June received a good turnout.
It’s a work in progress but a labor of love for McElmeel, who keeps a smiling photo of Doris, or “Dori,” in his dining room, opening out onto a deck overlooking the park. Other park features, like gazebo benches, bear her name.
“It’s all in her memory,” Steve said. “Everything is in her memory.”
Pat Kinney is a freelance writer and former longtime news staffer with the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier and, prior to that, several years at the Ames Tribune. He is currently an oral historian with the Grout Museum District in Waterloo. His “View from the Cedar Valley” column is part of “Iowa Writers Collaborative,” a collection of news and opinion writers from around the state who previously and currently work with a host of Iowa newspapers, news organizations and other publications. They are listed here. Clink on their individual links to check them out, subscribe for free - and, if you believe in the value of quality journalism, support this column and/or any of theirs with a paid subscription. Thank you.
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Iowa instinctive is where it can land again
I can’t wait to visit this park. Thanks, Pat, for highlighting it.