Claire & Charlie

Charlie: We've been here 12 years, and we were looking for an affordable home. We had been living in Highland Park for a year and it was just unaffordable.

Claire: Yeah, we were renting, and it was extortion. We weren't looking at North Chicago, but we found this amazing house. It was vacant at the time. We drove past, walked in, viewed it, and put an offer in straight-away.

You say that you hadn’t even considered North Chicago before that. Why did you decide to take a look that particular day?

Claire: We were driving from that cockroach house...

Charlie: We were looking at Waukegan. And we looked in Round Lake area. Every other house was horrible compared to this. We'd heard all kinds of negative things about North Chicago. “Don't go there!” Gang violence and you know– shootings and things like that, and drugs– and but we saw the house and we just fell in love.

Claire: Oh, do you remember when we first viewed the house and the [FBI Training Center] rifle range went off...

Charlie: We didn't know that it was there when we first moved in.

Claire: You get used to it. The big guns are the best!

There’s a learning curve for anyone moving to a new community…

Charlie: It was rough. The first– I'd say, the first two or three years.

Claire: Oh, God, you’d wake up… scared out of my mind. 

Charlie: We had a... our next door neighbor had some gang members, and so there were shootings. We heard him groaning after being shot one night. And then another time before that, all of their cars in the back had their windows shot out. It was scary.

Claire: But that was then.

Charlie: We started working with the city, the aldermen and we're working on things. We've been working with Christ Church to do projects around the city. We’re in it for the long haul.

Certainly, there are some people who would have opted for leaving, instead of sticking it out and making things better.

Charlie: Well, I was in the Marine Corps. I don't like backing down. 

Claire: And I'm a Brit. I've got a tough backbone. But we did have cameras put up. And we had security put in. It's been fine for a few years, now. We're made of tough stuff, aren't we, boy?!

Charlie: We are.

Claire: Have you been down to the beach? It's a brand new beach down there. It's amazing! The city is literally trying to clean up everything. They're working on making it the new North Shore. I don't know if it'll ever be that, but it'd be nice to think it was.

Claire: And you know what? Everybody I've met here– they're very friendly. They're lovely people.

Charlie: I’m on the [North Chicago Police] Citizens’ Advisory Committee. You know, if people want to come here and put the time in and work with the community, I think we can make it a really nice place. There's a there's a wonderful veteran community here because of the Navy base. I was in the Marine Corps, and it's it's nice having that there. I hear the bugle calls. I remember the first time I heard that– I locked up and saluted.

Claire: The national anthem every mornin'...

What prompted you to join the military, Charlie?

Charlie: I was just out of music school and I had started a business, so I figured I needed to start reading the newspaper. I started getting the [Chicago Tribune], and and I started thinking: wow, you know, you're either for society, or you're against. I felt like I needed to do something, you know, positive for society.

Claire: Semper Fi. You got your master's– a business degree, after that.

But you’d originally gotten a music degree?

Charlie: It was composition– so, more theory. I ran a recording studio. I was in electronics in the Marine Corps. 

Claire: And now he's got a really good job in electronics.

Charlie: I wanted to see things. I wanted to get out of the city. I was living in Wicker Park, and it was really rough back then. I wanted to get out and travel a little bit. See the world. And, pick up some additional skills and education.

Claire: I didn't even know you then. We met on Facebook.

You met on Facebook?!

Charlie: We did. A little app on Facebook. This was when Facebook kind of first started, right?

Claire: Oh, and I was never gonna go on it. My school friends said, “You've got to go on Facebook.” Okay. It was an app called The Little Green Patch. It was one of those little games, but you could visit with anyone all over the world. One day, this dude left a message: "I've just jumped in your leaves." It raked up a pile of leaves, and he'd just jumped in the leaves–

Charlie: And then we just started talking. I was in California at the time.

Claire: He started messaging me. The first time he messaged me on Facebook, I nearly dropped dead because I didn't know you could do that. 

And eventually you jumped to video…

Charlie: Yeah, we were Skyping, video chat, things like that.

Claire: And you asked me to marry you that first Christmas, and I flew out in April.

Wait. Before you'd met in person?

Claire: Yep. 

Charlie: Yeah. And yet, things have worked out.

To some, that might seem little bit impetuous. Would you describe yourselves that way?

Claire: No.

Charlie: No, not at all. 

Claire: Definitely not.

What three words would you use to describe him?

Claire: Bloody lovely. Sorry–

That’s okay, I'll hyphenate it. And?

Claire: Absolutely amazing. [Looks at him intently] And very, very clever. But you can be an old bugger. 

Charlie: Oh, yeah. [laughter]

So he proposed via Skype and then you thought: Well, I probably should meet this person?

Claire: I flew out here and I thought: So, what if he's a serial killer?

Charlie: [laughter]

Claire: I flew out in April and it was like we'd known each other forever, wasn't it? Then I went back home; I was living about an hour north of London. And I said to the kids– because they FaceTimed him, too– so they knew who Charlie was. I said, "We're gonna move to America." "Okay, Mum!" I flew back out here at the end of July, we got married, I went back home, and then we moved back here in October.

Claire: I said after the first one, I would never get married again. But then I met Charlie. [I was married for] four years. He had an affair with my best friend. He left and never saw his kids again. They're both married now. We've got two grandchildren. 

Claire: Our first year of marriage was crap. 

Charlie: Yeaaaaaah. We're a lot older. We're set in our ways.

Claire: And he's from America. I'm from England and everything is different. So that first year, we were just like... do you remember when I tipped dinner over your head?

Charlie: Oh yeah.

Claire: I feel bad about it. It hadn't been very many months…

There’s a theme of perseverance, here. Sticking it out with each other and staying with it in this house, even when things were looking bleak.

Claire: We love each other. We just had to get used to living together. Get used to living in a house where there was all this gangster... and we stuck it out. 

Charlie: It’s like anything– there's an investment. Things take time to develop. It’s the same thing with the community, too. That's why I'm doing the police advisory committee. We don't get paid for that. I do volunteer work sometimes, with the church once in a while. Painting fences– 

Claire: You were beautifying the beach– 

Charlie: Yeah, that was a lot of work.

What’s the last thing that you learned?

Claire: Being a caregiver for my granddaughter who was a preemie, and spent nearly nine months in Lurie [Children’s Hospital, in Chicago]. I learned how to do CPR, how to change a trach [tracheotomy tube], how to change a tummy button. So that's that's the last thing learned, apart from being a wife. Yeah, I'm a trained caregiver.

Do you have a credo or a motto that you live by?

Charlie: Each day: that's it, you get one chance. I remember my grandma said: It’s like each day you get a penny– and you can do whatever you want with this penny. Spend it. Give it away. Throw it away, not use it. But tomorrow, you're not going to have this penny, you're gonna get a new penny. And so you gotta do everything you can with that penny today.

For some, that may seem like a lot of pressure.

Charlie: But you're gonna get a penny every day. So you can you can sit on your butt, watch TV all day– 

Claire: Yeah, I like doin' that. 

Charlie: And that's fine. There's nothing wrong with that. I don't regret any of the chances that I've taken… [but] it’s not always easy when you do.

This conversation has been edited and condensed.