Full House

On the corner of Ellis Avenue and Monroe Street sits a white paneled house with purple bicycles and rusted scooters scattered throughout the yard. This house tucked away in the Appalachian hills of Chauncey, Ohio is coined the “neighborhood orphanage” according to 60-year-old Noreen Gretz, the house matriarch. Noreen lives with five to seven pre-teens and teenagers who reside there permanently or semi-permanently, not including those who hang around for a few days and leave. Most of the adolescents are forms of extended family members while others are neighborhood friends. 

One of these teens includes Noreen’s grandson Will Dowler, 17, who has lived with her throughout his youth amidst turbulent familial relationships. He grew up among this micro community of adolescents who sought refuge from their own compromised homelife environments. Will even invites his own friends to stay with them when necessary. “All I require is that they go to school,” Noreen said. “If they go to school then they can stay with me.”

Taking a Chance

Pronounced “Chance-ee,” the village of Chauncey, Ohio had lived up to its namesake of possibility. The community of about 1,000 people was once a part of the coal industry boom and bust that occurred in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Coined as the “little cities of black diamonds,” these historic communities found throughout the Appalachian region of southeast Ohio have collectively experienced the direct impact of resource extraction and navigate the effects to this day.