It was someone's home. They plowed the fields, seeded and harvested the crops. And then pa passed away, ma couldn't handle the family business, and the kids wanted nothing to do with farming. So they moved to the city and got jobs as secretaries or factory workers, and put ma in a retirement home, where she died of loneliness.

But the kids got good money for the land.

This is often the answer when people ask, "Why is it abandoned?"