From the Editor

From our beginning nearing 25 years ago, Coulee Region Women has worked to depict all women in our region—from stories about the bright futures ahead for college students to those highlighting how women remain strong and active in their later years.

As I paged through issues from the early 2000s (what do we even call those years? The “aughts”?), I realized that we are essentially into our second generation or stage of life ourselves.

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Some of us began writing for Coulee Region Women when our children were very young. 

I was pregnant with my son when my first Coulee Region Women story, about women choosing to step out of the workforce to be home with their children, was published—and now my son is a young adult. Some of our staff who were in the prime of their careers as Coulee Region Women launched have moved into retirement (though often with new passion projects inspiring their days). And in the last few years, many of our writers, photographers, models, story subjects and advertisers have been women who had not even been born when the first issue hit the streets.

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Every generation brings something unique to our region, and each stage of life we pass through brings new challenges and new joys to us as individuals.

That is what we hope you will find in this issue beginning with our Profile story: the beauty of each generation, the strength of moving through each stage of life, and an appreciation for who you are and where you are right now.

We examine how things are passed down through the generations: businesses, traditions, knowledge and stories.

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Read about three generations of women working side-by-side at Christen Farms Nursery or how Kathryn Poehling Seymour has stepped into the role of CEO in her family’s expanding fifth-generation business, First Supply.

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Learn about the common passion and mentoring that connects two generations of scientists focused on the health of the Mississippi River.

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Take a drive down the Great River Road to Genoa in early July and savor the traditional risotto recipe passed down through generations of women at St. Charles Barromeo Catholic Church.

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Spend an afternoon in West Salem taking in the town’s pride in its Pulitzer Prize-winning native son, Hamlin Garland. His former home, filled with items his family felt belonged back in his hometown, provides a glimpse into the past and into the life of an early 20th-century writer who believed women deserved to be recognized for their talents, and who raised a daughter who illustrated his prize-winning novel A Daughter of the Middle Border and piloted airplanes.

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Be inspired by the coaches and athletes of the La Crosse Mountain Bike Team and its GRiT (Girls Riding Together) program, in which some families flipped the script: It was the involvement of their children that sparked some coaches to get out on the trails.

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Of course, each stage of life has its challenges as well. We know that safe use of technology is important for everyone, whether that means adults learning to recognize the potential for scams that have developed around email, texting and the internet or protecting children from the social and mental health pitfalls of excessive social media use. Our Family story offers tips for all ages, plus additional resources.

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And I know that many readers in my generation—Generation X—will relate to the challenges of the sandwich generation. As many of us started our families later than most previous generations, we now find ourselves balancing children who are still at home with parents who also need support navigating health and aging. Writer Michelle Byom has been there, and she has collected real, reasonable suggestions in our Healthy Living story for taking care of yourself while caught in the middle of the squeeze.

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Finally, La Crosse native Diana Elena Moran Sanchez Thundercloud encourages us to consider not only the heritage passed down to us from families both born and chosen, but what we can do for future generations. How can we be good ancestors?

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Coulee Region Women has been here to tell a generation’s worth of stories, and we intend to tell at least a generation more. From teens to nonagenarians (and maybe beyond), we thank you all for being a part of our story.