But after months of unsuccessfully negotiating with government officials who insisted on buying her land to make way for Interstate 69, she had to erase the second sentence.
“I couldn’t bear to leave it up there,” she said. “It was a journey that was impossible to enjoy.”
The family’s house was located in Martinsville along the route that Section 5 of I-69 will eventually take. When completed, this portion of the road will stretch 21 miles. It will have cost almost $546 million, replaced nearly 250 acres of hardwood forest and displaced 150 homes, according to the Hoosier Environmental Council’s website.
It began with rumors.
“Not knowing was one of the worst things,” Madalyn said. “Merrill went to these meetings, and they made you think that they were going to answer all of these questions, but they never really told you anything.”
After two years of unanswered questions, strangers arrived on the family’s property and began digging. They dug holes everywhere, carefully examining each little rock.
“Nobody ever explained it to us,” Madalyn said. “After we had moved, we got a heavy package in the mail one day. We opened it, and it was full of the rocks from our land.”
Once the digging was complete, surveyors looked the area over and named a price value that the couple, who are both in their ’80s, could not believe or accept.
“The state really thinks this appraising is the right way to do it, but I think it’s a farce,” Merrill, Madalyn’s husband, said. “The people they send to put a price on it have nothing invested in it, and they’re never going to have anything invested in it. They put the price on it that the people who hired them want to pay.”
The state proposed buying the couple’s 38 acres of farmland for about $1,400 an acre, though Merrill said land of that quality typically goes for around $10,000 an acre at auctions. Merrill’s brother’s property, which is nearby and about the same size as Merrill’s, was surveyed by a different appraiser and deemed to be almost twice as valuable.
“This is the kicker,” Merrill said. “They came back with a stack of paper that said this appraisal cannot be used against us in a court of law.”
Realizing there was nothing they could do, the couple moved into a small house down the road. Even so, the state attempted to fill its obligation of finding a new property for the Maxwells of equal value to the one they had lost.
“One day after we had already moved, the man showed up and told us he had found a place for us,” Marrill said. “When we saw it, we just laughed. It was down a gravel road and had water problems. It had been on sale for three years and nobody had bought it and even with all that, it still cost $90,000 more than what they had said our old property was worth.”
Merrill and Madalyn’s children have also been affected by the construction. Their son-in-law lost his boating business across the street and still has not been able to find another job.
“He’s 50, and it’s hard to find a job at that age,” Madalyn said. “He loved his job, that’s what he always wanted to do. Seeing your kids done that way, that’s very hard for us.”
The couple is currently awaiting a court date in April 2016 to fight for what they see as a fair price for their loss.
“You can’t comprehend that they’re doing this to you,” Madalyn said, reflecting on the physical and emotional toll the process has had on her family. “It’s in the name of progress, but the way they’re doing it, I’m just not sure.”
Today, all they have left of their home is memories and a book of photographs.
Sitting on the couch, Madalyn flips through the pages of beautifully decorated bedrooms, sturdy staircases and a light-filled kitchen.
The cover of the book reads, “Enjoy the journey.”
