Craven Addition to Carter Lake Preserve

Every part of Pat Cruce and John Craven’s family land holds a story. Sister and brother fondly re-member roaming the hills and valleys with their siblings, after-dinner walks on Sundays, visits from extended family, picking huckleberries for pies, and blueberries to sell. Eldest John recalls their father taking him winter camping (an “experience”) and teaching him how to use a cross-cut saw at the age of seven. Pat loves the cool and breezy Picnic Spot so much that she and her husband, Garry Cruce, built their home on it after returning from missionary work in South America.

Pat and John’s great-grandfather purchased the original piece about 120 years ago and the Barry County property has been in their family for four generations. Their father, Dic, was born in a house on the property, and they grew up in the “new” one that replaced it. The old barn and outbuildings stand among newer ones, holding distant and fresh memories together in the way that elder and younger members of close families do.

The Craven Family has taken good care of their land over the years. A conservation forester at heart, Dic kept underground networks alive by only harvesting select trees, which has helped foster native wildflowers and many big tree specimens. Box turtles gladly take advantage of the rolling “kettle and kame” topography, foraging in the wet low areas and nesting in the upland oak-hickory forest where it’s dry and sandy.

SWMLC recently purchased 61 acres of the Craven Family land with funds provided by generous donors. The property shares a border with our 68-acre Carter Lake Preserve, a refuge preserve where spring-fed seeps, sedge meadows, and prairie fens protect water quality at its source and provide crucial breeding habitat for threatened wildlife like bald eagles, trumpeter swans, and Blanding’s turtles. The hilly, wooded Craven Family property enhances the ecological strength of Carter Lake Preserve by expanding it to nearly 130 acres and adding variety to the terrain, safeguarding habitat where even more types of plants and animals can thrive.

SWMLC protected Carter Lake Preserve back in 2000 with generous financial help from the Groos Family. Soon after, Tom Groos connected with Dic and Alice, Pat and John’s parents, to ask if they would consider conserving their land, too, starting a decades-long conversation. Over the years, the Craven Family talked with several different SWMLC staff about what it might look like to conserve part of their property.

Both Alice and Dic passed away during this time – but their dream of keeping their land natural was honored and kept alive by the family. Details finally fell into place in Spring 2025, protecting the beloved family land forever. Thinking of his in-laws while watching orioles dive-bomb oranges in the yard, Garry smiles and says simply, “We know they would be pleased.”