DOCUMENTING DISAPPEARING FAMILY FARMSTEADS

Welcome to Documenting Disappearing Family Farmsteads—a project born from a love of abandoned places and a deep desire to preserve what’s being lost. What began as an exploration of forgotten architecture has grown into a poignant documentation of rural family homesteads across the upper Midwest, beginning in Minnesota.

 

Through photography, research, and conversations with landowners and former residents, I aim to honor the legacy of these once-thriving farms. Each home holds fragments of a story—handwritten notes, wallpapered kitchens, boots by the back door. These places, now crumbling under time and weather, were once full of life.

 

This work is about memory, preservation, and bearing witness. Before these farmsteads disappear completely, I want to capture what remains—so that we can remember the lives lived there, even long after the people have gone.