July 20, 2006

Jennie and Brian Gilchrist and their daughter, Eliza, moved to Yellow Springs a year ago. Jennie grew up in town, then moved away for 20 years. She is expecting the couple’s second child this fall.

By Diane Chiddister

When Jennie Bateman Gilchrist was growing up in Yellow Springs in the late 1970s, she was the only child of a single mom. Her mother worked all day, but Gilchrist didn’t feel like a latchkey kid, and she wasn’t alone each afternoon when she got out of the Antioch School. Rather, she felt welcomed into the families of the several friends with whom she stayed until her mom got off work.

“I felt there were lots of adults taking care of me,” Gilchrist said in a recent interview. “I felt raised by this village.”

Gilchrist has many other sweet memories of growing up in Yellow Springs, she said, including going barefoot, riding her bike all over town and performing in plays with friends. She saw her growing-up years here as almost idyllic, so much so that she wrote her first college essay about having grown up in “utopia surrounded by cornfields.”

“Some of the best times of my life were in the ’70s and ’80s,” she said.

Even though Gilchrist loved growing up in the village, when she left about 20 years ago she didn’t plan to come back. She had big plans and a big talent to match — she wanted to be an opera singer, and opera singers don’t live in Yellow Springs. Gilchrist started college in Austin, Texas, and then she moved to the Boston area to study at the New England Conservatory of Music. She loved the East Coast culture, the fast-paced life and the opportunities for singing, she said, and she had “no intentions of moving back.”

But things changed. Gilchrist continued to sing but stepped off the professional track and found that she loved working with food and wine. She met the man who became her husband, Brian, and the two had their first child (she’s expecting her second this fall). A little more than a year ago, Gilchrist and her husband were feeling worn down by the city. He had lost his job, money was tight, they had a baby, and it was hard to raise a child in the city. The couple researched arts-oriented small towns in two books, and found Yellow Springs listed in both, she said. Gradually, they began thinking about coming home to the village.

“I saw the value of having grandparents close by for Eliza,” she said.

Several years previously, Gilchrist’s mother, Sue Parker, had purchased a small home on Stafford Street to use as a rental property. But Parker called the house “Jennie’s House,” and made clear her hope that her daughter would someday come home. It was a family joke, Gilchrist said, until the couple realized that “Jennie’s House” was beginning to look very good. With her restaurant experience, Gilchrist landed a job at the Winds Cafe, and a year ago the family moved to Yellow Springs.

Overall, according to Gilchrist, “it’s been incredible to be back. It feels very comfortable and natural to be here.”

The best part is having grandparents close by for her children, Gilchrist said, and being able to offer her daughter some of the same things that she loved. She has also been pleasantly surprised by the high quality of music she has found attending the opera and symphony in Dayton. And she is very pleased to be in a community that values diversity, especially since her husband is African-American.

But there have been challenges as well, she said. She and her husband, a writer, would both like to work in town, and while he recently left an unsatisfying job in Dayton, he sees little hope of finding work in the village. She also worries about the lack of affordable housing in town and knows that she and her husband would not have been able to move back if her mother hadn’t made things easy by buying a house, for which the couple pays a reasonable rent.

Most difficult, she said, was coming home with a very different life than the one she expected to have when she left.

In Boston, she found out there were aspects of herself that made her uncomfortable choosing the life of a professional singer, she said. She learned that, for a variety of reasons, she lacked “the diva instinct” and didn’t really enjoy performing in public. Her difficulty with performing was linked, she discovered, to childhood sexual abuse from an out-of-town relative, and she delved deeply into therapy to heal herself. She also found she loved working with people in the restaurant business more than the solitary work of practicing for hours every day. And she found that she very much wanted to start a family.

All of those things together have propelled Gilchrist out of the music business. And while she’s pleased with her new life and thrilled with her new family, she worries that perhaps she has let down some of her old friends and acquaintances.

“I didn’t come back rich and famous,” she said.

While she still struggles with feeling that she didn’t fulfill others’ expectations, Gilchrist is glad to be here. She loves her work and deeply appreciates her mom and stepfather, Bob Parker, caring for Eliza while she and her husband work. She plans to sing for enjoyment and not pressure herself. And she is very happy to offer her daughter and her yet-to-be-born son an opportunity to grow up in the utopia surrounded by cornfields.

Contact: dchiddister@ysnews.com