Devon Sproule, perennial favorite of the Charlottesville folk scene, just might be Twin Oaks’ best-known local alum. (She grew up there.) But she’s hardly the only ex-Oaker, as they call themselves, to settle in Charlottesville. With the community only 35 miles away from our relatively cosmopolitan city, perhaps it’s a natural that Oakers leaving the fold would be drawn here.
Even less surprising is the fact that as Charlottesville citizens, they tend to be, well, community-minded. Jon Kessler and Marsha Burger have lived in two different Charlottesville neighborhoods—Fifeville and Little High—where clusters of ex-Oakers carried on some of the cooperative ways of their Louisa County life. “We helped each other in all sorts of ways,” Marsha says. “We asked for a lot of child care. And we had a washer and dryer, and other people didn’t.” In the first several years after leaving Twin Oaks, the ex-members shared vehicles and helped each other move—in other words, they were neighborly.
 Derek Breen came to Charlottesville after leaving Twin Oaks in 2005; he says he “earned an MBA” running the hammocks business there, and is now in business for himself. Mod is a gallery and meeting space on Elliewood Avenue. |
Oakers have put their stamp on Charlottesville in wider ways too, usually working for causes of some lefty variety. Alexis Zeigler lobbied for the bike lanes that now grace W. Main Street, Jefferon Park Avenue and other streets; he’s also dabbled in peak-oil activism, pro-local trade and anti-development issues. Several ex-Oakers have taught at the Living Education Center, a small private school, and a number of its students have come from the community as well. Another alum, Susan Wiedman, founded the annual Vegetarian Festival.
Meanwhile, since last winter, Derek Breen has opened a blue house at the end of Elliewood Avenue as a public space for various creative pursuits—writing, Web design, video production, storytelling. Though he doesn’t hesitate to describe his disillusionment with community living, he hasn’t severed his ties to Twin Oaks by any means. He visits once a month or so, and Oakers drop by Mod when they’re in town.
They share a peculiar bond. “I had dinner with a few other members recently,” he says, “and we spoke for probably two hours about our dishwashing shifts.”
