July 13, 2006

(Photo by Diane Chiddister) Naysan McILhargey and Jalana Lazar at their home in Yellow Springs.

By Diane Chiddister

Naysan McIlhargey feels grateful to live in Yellow Springs. He grew up here, went away for several years and then decided that the life he wanted was here all along. He feels grateful to live here because he knows several childhood friends who want to live in Yellow Springs but don’t have the means to do so.

“A lot of my classmates who live in Springfield, Fairborn and Xenia — they would love to live here but they can’t,” he said in a recent interview.

Those young people can’t afford the price of housing in town, according to McIlhargey, who said help from his family — his mother and stepfather, Farzaneh and David Mader — allowed him and his wife, Jalana Lazar, to move back from Connecticut two and a half years ago. A potter, he was apprenticing in Connecticut, but found that other potters were having a hard time selling their wares in that area. The Yellow Springs area, with its residents’ appreciation for arts and handcrafts, looked like a place that could provide a strong customer base. When he and Lazar moved back, McIlhargey’s stepfather helped for a year to build the wood-burning kiln at the couple’s business, Miami Valley Pottery, on East Hyde Road right outside of Yellow Springs.

Other factors pulled him back to the village as well, McIlhargey said. He wanted to be close to family and old childhood friends, and both he and Lazar appreciated the area’s strong arts community and lively downtown. While some may assume a small town doesn’t offer enough stimulation for young adults, they have found the opposite to be true.

“We’re finding a lot of socially engaging things to do,” McIlhargey said. “Almost every night of the week we’re doing something.”

Several other close childhood friends have recently moved back to the area, including Erika (Heaton) Grushon and Matt Grushon, who graduated with McIlhargey from Yellow Springs High School in 1993. Other old friends now are talking about wanting to move back, McIlhargey said, so much so that the topic provides a source of amazement to Lazar, who grew up first in New York City, then in Connecticut.

“I feel it’s a fascinating phenomenon,” she said. “Where I grew up, people don’t come back.”

It’s not surprising to McIlhargey that young adults begin thinking about coming back to Yellow Springs after they’ve been away for awhile.

“People have wonderful memories of having been children here,” he said. “They need to go someplace else, and they do.” Then they realize the value of the village, he said, especially when they are ready to settle down and have a family.

McIlhargey first came to Yellow Springs as a child from a tough Toledo neighborhood and was amazed at village children’s friendliness and sense of fun, he said. When his mother and stepfather married and he and his siblings moved to Yellow Springs, he was thrilled, he said, and he describes his growing-up years here as happy ones. After he graduated from high school, he attended Earlham College, and then moved back to Yellow Springs for a few years and began his work as a potter. After deciding he needed to improve his technical skills, McIlhargey worked as an apprentice to two potters in Connecticut, where he met Lazar.

Having spent her whole life on the East Coast, Lazar wasn’t sure, at first, if she could adapt to a Midwestern lifestyle, she said. And she’s not sure that she could have, if she were living somewhere other than Yellow Springs. Here, she appreciates being around people whose progressive values she shares, she said, and she especially appreciates their combination of an activist spirit and Midwestern politeness.

“It’s a fascinating mix,” Lazar said. “People are activists but they’re also careful of each others’ feelings, as people often are in the Midwest.”

McIlhargey and Lazar said they also value the intergenerational bonds among villagers, and find that they often socialize with people McIlhargey knew only as his parents’ friends when he was growing up.

Overall, both McIlhargey and Lazar said, what they most value is feeling a part of a caring community.

“It’s an interesting thing about going downtown and seeing someone you haven’t seen in a while,” he said. “People are very sincere in wanting to know how you are.”

McIlhargey and Lazar said they do have concerns about the village, and they worry that the lack of affordable housing will keep their old friends from moving back. Young adults who grow up here and then move back bring a richness of knowledge and caring about Yellow Springs that can only benefit the village, they said, and they wish it were easier for those people to return. And they feel concerned that no African-American former classmates are among the old friends they know who grew up here and then moved back.

Starting a pottery business is hard work, McIlhargey said, and he feels constantly challenged. But with help from his family, his friends and his community, he is making a go of it. Both he and Lazar are very glad to call Yellow Springs home.

Contact: dchiddister@ysnews.com