SCOTTSBURG, IND. — Christine Nesci’s car would not start, and the boys needed to be at school. Her husband, Jonathan, was in Chicago on business.

She asked around and, like that, the kids had rides. Nesci was offered a loaner car. And don’t worry, more than one person assured her, we can get the boys home. That sense of community that the Nescis cherish proved itself.

“It literally feels like extended family,” she said.

About 27,000 people live in Scott County. The Nescis are among those there absolutely and positively by choice. They left their native Chicago more to find something than to lose something. They discovered Scottsburg pretty much by happenstance. They noticed a rehabbed place both to live and work on the stuck-in-time courthouse square. They offered a deposit on the spot.

They trusted their gut and are thrilled they did.

“A lot of things are a trade-off, but the good outweighs,” Jonathan Nesci said. “The people — the people are great.”

He designs furniture sold in big cities. She runs a cozy fitness studio best known for its demanding, yet Zen-like spinning classes.

“We talk about love in class,” she said. “I tell them love is brighter than diamonds.”

Here since the summer of 2009, the Nescis are as dug in as some families with a head start of decades. The couple volunteers routinely at the boys’ school, for instance. They tend a plot in a community garden. She offered free health tips at the area’s science park and has turned on half the county, it seems, to juicers.

“I don’t see them going anywhere,” said Melissa Woods, a family friend and a disciple of Christine Nesci’s training. “There’d be hurt people if they did. You just don’t encounter people like that on an everyday basis.”

She is 31, he 30; they met at a high school graduation party and were married when barely out of their teens. Neither recalls wanting careers other than the ones they have. Both are largely self-taught, honing skills sometimes the hard way. Christine Nesci’s weight yo-yoed until she learned to control it.

“I fell in love with helping other people accomplish their goals, as well,” she said.

He creates geometic, minimalistic, functional pieces built in Chicago that end up in New York, Denver, Paris — all over. “People relate to the simplistic,” Jonathan Nesci said.

Once inclined to leave Chicago, they guessed they might land in Louisville, near a relative. Jonathan Nesci came south to scout. Meeting a friend from the Scottsburg area, Nesci was introduced there to his family’s future.

“We wanted that small-town feel for our kids,” said Christine Nesci, who obviously was not a hard sell.

Likewise enamored with the life chosen for them, Austin Nesci, 8, and brother Aiden, 6, attend Vienna-Finley Elementary School. Its principal is Brent Comer, otherwise president of the Nesci fan club.

“Those two just see the world differently,” Comer said of the boys’ parents. “There’s never ‘I can’t’ with them.”

Comer talks of them having an aura, of being so sincere and transparent with their interest for others and the community. “We’re just so thrilled they chose Scottsburg,” Comer said. “We are very glad we beat every place else.”

Christine Nesci tinkers with her business, Sky Sport Fitness, best to meet demand. She leads lawyers, factory workers, a broad range including a class for seniors. She keeps on hand deodorant and hair spray and the like, should her students forget. Jonathan Nesci continues, too, to settle on an ideal for his company called HALE.

“There will be plenty more failures in the future,” he said of their quests to succeed.

They feel more than accepted, dug in, and not just when a car breaks down. “There are a lot of people we know that people who grew up here don’t know,” he said. “That feels nice.”

With ties both personal and professional, the Nescis remain close to Chicago. What they miss pales to what they do not, however.

“We really want a Starbucks here,” she said.

 

Article by Dale Moss of The Courier-Journal