Eighty years of the same land.
Our Story
The farm has been in our family since 1945. The lavender arrived in 2020. Some things take time to find their purpose.
How we got here.
A Depression-era family, a Missouri farm, and eighty years of holding on.
Atha Pearl Ragsdale — the farm, early years.
1930s — Ruby and Atha Pearl leave Missouri.
My grandparents were both born in Polk County, Missouri — Ruby in 1904 in Halfway, Atha Pearl in 1909 in Polk, less than fifteen miles apart. They came from farming families, grew up in the same rural corner of the state, and married in the early years of the Depression.
Atha Pearl's family knew land. Her father had a habit of buying farms in Polk County whenever one came up for sale — hard-working people who understood that ground was something worth holding onto. She grew up with that in her bones. She had also set her sights on becoming a nurse, a goal that was within reach until it wasn't.
Ruby had nearly died as a teenager when the Spanish flu swept through in 1918 and 1919. He recovered — and kept moving.
Before he and Atha Pearl were married, Ruby worked wherever work existed. He had a love of trains and a knack for hands-on trades — concrete, welding, whatever was needed. That work took him to Kansas City, to St. Joseph, and points in between. It was during those years, working around St. Joseph, that he discovered the soil north of the Missouri River. Unlike the rocky ground back in southern Missouri, this soil was far better suited for crops.
The Depression made staying in central Missouri impossible. Ruby found work connected to the California oil fields — not the life either of them had wanted. For Atha Pearl, it also meant leaving behind the nursing path she'd been working toward. Their daughter Martha Lou was born in Santa Paula. California got them through the hard years, but they never stopped missing home.
Sometime just before or during the early years of the war, they made it back to the Midwest. They worked fields in Kansas and Missouri, Missouri City among them. They tried more than once to find a farm in that country. In 1945, they finally did.
Atha Pearl with the cattle.
The dairy operation, early years.
1945 — They buy the land.
It was 1945. The war had just ended. Somehow, Ruby and Atha Pearl pulled it off.
They purchased 51 acres just west of the Jesse James Birthplace near Kearney, Missouri. What the property looked like when they arrived is hard to know, but there was already a house standing — built sometime before 1900. There was a well and an outhouse.
Ruby and Atha got to work. Fences went up. The chicken coop had to be completely rebuilt. They built a dairy barn. Ruby was a carpenter by trade — he built and repaired homes throughout the area — and he didn't waste a thing. Around 1951, he tore down the old house and began building a new one. While that work was underway, he and Atha Pearl moved into the cinder block garage. The new house wasn't finished until around 1957. You can still see Ruby's approach to materials in the salvaged basement doors and throughout other parts of the house. I sometimes wonder if part of what kept the construction going so long was Grandpa quietly waiting for the right discarded materials to come along. While I'm not sure what all Grandma contributed to the building itself, I do know she laid the hardwood floors. For years they lived in an unfinished home and kept building. It's hard to imagine today, but that was simply how it was done.
Like most farms of the era, they didn't rely on a single crop or a single animal. There were dairy cows, Angus cattle, hogs, chickens, and goats. There was at least one goose — named Quaky — who became dinner one evening. My dad was crushed when he found out. Marcella nearly threw up. At some point Grandma cultivated a field of strawberries and sold them to friends and neighbors. They farmed somewhere around ten to fifteen acres of crops — corn, soybeans, and whatever else rotated through. You provided for yourself, and you made use of everything.
1945 — Marcella and the dairy cows.
Marcella was born in 1939, which made her six years old when they arrived on the farm. She was always wanting to help with milking. Ruby put her off as long as he could. Eventually he gave in. After that, she helped milk the cows every morning before school. Years later, after she graduated from high school and married Ray Babcock, she and Ray moved to Oregon. When she came back to visit, she noticed the dairy cows were gone. She asked Grandpa what happened to them. He said: I couldn't keep doing it when you left.
~1955 — Martha Lou graduates.
Martha Lou graduated from Kearney High School around 1955. Much of her career was spent at Farmland Industries, where she became deeply committed to the farm cooperative movement — the idea that farmers were stronger working together than going it alone. She lived at the farm for a number of years, later moved to Kansas City, but was back most weekends. The farm was always home base.
1946 — My father is born on the farm.
Clifford — my dad — was born on the farm in 1946. He attended the one-room schoolhouse on the property until it closed in 1954, after his second grade year. His sisters Martha Lou and Marcella had both completed eighth grade there. Unlike his sisters, Cliff wasn't drawn to farming. Through 4-H he developed a deep interest in electricity and electronics, and that stuck with him. After graduating he attended the University of Missouri–Rolla, now known as the Missouri University of Science and Technology.
Clifford, about age one, with his aunts. Kearney, Missouri.
Ruby and Clifford by the well, early 1950s.
1970s and early 1980s — The farm grows into a family.
Things started to change around 1970. Ruby and Atha Pearl gave four acres of the farm to each of their three children. Marcella and Ray received four acres on the northeastern corner. Cliff and Ann got four acres on the south end, right next to the old Somerset Schoolhouse. Martha Lou received four acres just north of Cliff and Ann's.
Marcella and Ray built their house first. Ray ran a tree nursery, growing trees for landscaping customers throughout the area. They raised three boys — Bud (Ray Jr.), Mike, and Russell — and kept horses and a large garden. Ray had a gift for growing things, and come harvest time, Grandma, Marcella, and Ann would spend days together canning and freezing food. Ray was also a hunter, something Bud and Mike carry on to this day.
My parents met in the late 1960s and married in 1969. They built their house when I was about a year old. We had a garden some years, but no livestock.
Martha Lou never built on her four acres — but she had a pond.
From what my mom has told me, Grandpa was never in particularly strong health. A few years after the land was divided, he was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. His ability to work the farm slowed gradually — I don't imagine there was a single day when everything changed, just a long, steady decline. The fact that all three of his children had built their lives within steps of the farm made all the difference. Between Martha Lou, Marcella, and my dad living nearby, they were able to keep things functioning. They rented portions of the property to cattle and crop farmers, while continuing to keep chickens and tend a garden.
I have a lot of memories from those years — running around the farm with my cousin Russell, the way kids do when they don't yet understand what they're standing in the middle of.
Grandpa died in 1988. In the last several years of his life I feel like I saw him every other day. But because of his illness, we were never really able to have a conversation. That's something I've carried with me.
1988–2001 — Grandma and Martha Lou carry on.
After Grandpa died, Martha Lou moved back home. She and Grandma kept the farm going, this time with cattle. I was a teenager by then, old enough to help — feeding them, helping milk the calves. Those are good memories.
But raising cattle is hard, especially if you expect to turn a profit. After losing money a couple of years in a row, they made the practical decision to rent the land out rather than continue working it themselves.
My grandmother passed away in 2001. Having been so close to her through the 1980s and 90s, I always saw her as the reason the farm worked as well as it did. Grandpa gets a lot of the credit — he built the barn, built the house, worked the land — but I believe they were true partners, and I would have loved to have had that conversation with him. To hear how he saw it.
My wife Brianne and I didn't meet until 2003, so she and Grandma never crossed paths. But when I think about what it takes to keep something like this alive — the daily work, the care, the refusal to cut corners — I see the same thing in both of them. My grandmother was a reason the farm survived its first fifty years. Brianne may be the reason it survives the next fifty.
The reality of a small farm today.
It's easy to romance the era of living off the land. But it is a hard life, and in this modern age, turning a profit on a small farm is nearly impossible. In 1945, fifty acres may have been an average working farm. By today's standards, it isn't close.
The location adds its own challenges. This is Clay County, Missouri — twenty miles from an international airport, pressed up against one of the fastest growing regions in the state. Land values have climbed steadily, and with them, property taxes.
For a small farm to survive in that environment, it has to do something different. It needs to connect directly with local consumers. It needs to be relevant — not just as land, but as a place people want to come to, buy from, and return to.
That's where Brianne comes in.
2021 — Instead of selling, we planted.
In 2021, my family had a conversation we had been putting off for years. The farm's rental income was no longer covering the basic costs — property taxes, insurance, upkeep. For the first time in a long time, selling was seriously on the table.
We decided to try something instead.
That year we planted a test crop of over 200 lavender plants across eight varieties. It was enough to learn from. By 2022 we were selling at farmers markets and expanded to over 500 plants. Then we lost every single one of the newly planted additions. No irrigation system, no way to keep up with watering — and the plants paid for it. It was a hard lesson.
In 2023, Brianne and I purchased the old Somerset Schoolhouse on the south end of the farm — the same building my father attended as a boy, the same one his sisters completed eighth grade in. We moved in and finally ran irrigation out to the lavender field. The 2023 crop survived.
Also that year, my cousin Mike Babcock invested in restoring the two-bedroom farmhouse as a rental property. By 2024, for the first time in years, the farm was covering its annual expenses.
The farm is still standing. The next step is making the lavender truly profitable — and that work is already underway.
2011 — Brianne starts making soap.
After our daughter India was born, Brianne began handcrafting soaps and bath products — a way to create with her hands and make something worth giving. What started as a personal pursuit became a craft, then a following, then a business. She hasn't taken a shortcut yet.
Brianne and India, 2014.
2020 — Five hundred lavender plants go in the ground.
Rising property taxes and maintenance costs made the farm's future uncertain. Rather than sell land that had been in the family for 75 years, we planted lavender as a way to generate the income needed to keep it. The lavender pays the taxes. The farm stays in the family.
Lavender Field
Today — Four generations on the same land.
Ruby and Atha Pearl chose this ground. Clifford was born on it. Brianne and I are keeping it. India drives the golf cart through the lavender rows each June. Lewis, 10, handles whatever needs handling. We're open free to the public every lavender season — late May through June. We'd love for you to come see it.
Brianne makes everything.
If you've been to the Liberty Farmers Market on a Saturday morning, you've probably already met her. She's the one who made everything on the table — and she can tell you exactly what's in each one and why.
Brianne has been handcrafting soaps, lotions, bath bombs, sachets, and more since 2011. Every product is made in small batches, with real ingredients, by hand. She hasn't taken a shortcut yet, and she doesn't plan to.
She does about 90% of the work that makes Ruby Acres Lavender Farm run. The farm is the story. Brianne is the reason people come back.
Who you'll meet at the farm.
Brianne — Makes every product by hand. The heart of the operation.
India — Runs golf cart rides to the lavender field. Knows the way.
Darrin — Clifford's son. The one who decided the farm wasn't for sale.
Lewis — Age 10. Handles whatever needs handling.
One mile from Jesse James.
The Jesse James Birthplace is about a mile up the road — close enough that the stories overlap. Our farm sits on land that was part of the same rural community Jesse James grew up in. Most people driving past on Jesse James Farm Road have no idea any of this history is here.
The home Brianne and I live in was once the neighborhood's one-room schoolhouse. My aunts Martha Lou and Marcella finished the 8th grade there. My father Clifford attended until 1954 when it closed. We live in it now.
Some things are worth holding onto.