My wife and I met when we were sixteen years old. We were fast friends, and I was invited to her hometown of Ottawa, Illinois less than a year later. A family of men sharing my name, with five generations of “Charles” under several variations, I was comically welcomed. Upon that first visit, I was intrigued by her background that was so completely unlike my own. 

Genevieve grew up alongside her grandparents, parents, and siblings, spending much of her time in the A-Frame house at the bottom of the hill that her grandfather, Chuck, built by hand for himself and his wife, Diane. She spent her childhood outside walking deerpaths, crashing bicycles, and catching crayfish between her small fingers in Covel Creek.

Enthralled by the depth of their local history but limited by my own teenage timidity, I listened to their stories and dialogue intently for years. Over time, I began to photograph family events and, eventually, the home itself. I have tried to identify what makes this place all that it has come to be. The wood-powered furnace that heats the house, the burn pile that Chuck uses to dispose of his organic waste, and the stink bugs that persist even through the depths of the Illinois winter. The dynamics, theatrics, and tenderness that flow between the pillars of their family.

Frog Ranch, a nickname given to this place by its people, is an effort to document a group and place I’ve learned over time to inhabit, appreciate, and call home.