The Notebook That Rose from Fleming's Rest: A Farmer's Last Lines

The Notebook That Rose from Fleming's Rest: A Farmer's Last Lines

A farmer's appointment book stood upright out of Vermont clay after thirty years underground, its spine breaking the surface on May 9, 2019-inside, Lisa Fleming's handwriting ended with a final, methodical line and a second frantic entry in a different pen. Why was a fourteen-foot strip called Fleming's Rest left unplowed for generations, and what truth did that notebook refuse to keep buried?

In this episode, we trace the notebook's emergence from a protected strip of Dunmore farmland and the events surrounding Lisa Fleming's disappearance on May 14, 1989, following her last-reported visit to the western margin to check a drainage issue-what did she discover that day?

Person: Lisa Fleming Date: May 14, 1989 Location: Fleming's Rest, western edge of a Dunmore cornfield Event: Notebook surfaced May 9, 2019 after thirty years underground Person: Douglas Harte

- The notebook stood upright in an unplowed strip of land on May 9, 2019 after thirty years of freeze-thaw cycles. - Fleming's Rest is a fourteen-foot-wide strip on forty-two acres of undrained marsh that has been left undisturbed since 1791. - Lisa Fleming, aged thirty-one and agricultural manager of her father's dairy farm, was last seen May 14, 1989 after saying she would check a drainage issue. - Neighbor Douglas Harte, age forty-three in spring 1989, had installed a French drain on his adjoining parcel in autumn 1988; his brother Kevin was reported missing in October 1988. - Reverend Carl Carl recorded a May 16, 1989 pastoral visit to the Harte property as "matter of conscience, not for publication."

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