— Chuck Frost was president of the bank here, involved in economic development and fundraising for local schools. He was the kind of bank president who shoveled the snow out front in winter, staffed the phones when needed and held open the door for customers.
Then in July 2009, First State Bank of Winchester was seized by regulators, put into receivership and sold to another institution. For almost three months, he stayed on as division president, but then left.
“It was time to move along,” Frost said in an interview Monday wearing sneakers, beige shorts and a T-shirt. “There were people questioning what the previous ownership and management was doing, and I’m sitting in the room. I thought ‘This might be a good time to leave.'”
His efforts to find a new job haven’t been successful. And he remains haunted by the loss of the bank, which had been in his family for 141 years over five generations, along with his position in the community.
Earlier this year Frost hit bottom. His wife was threatening divorce after 18 years of marriage, and he was seeing a therapist twice a month for depression.
“It’s a challenge to all of a sudden not be the same person you were before,” Frost said. “You lose your stature and your connection in the community.”
In fits and starts the country is emerging from the recession, but its effects continue to roll over people’s personal lives.
“The impact of recent economic losses on families will continue for many years to come,” says a recent report, “The Long-Range Impact of the Recession on Families,” by the Council on Contemporary Families, a Chicago-based research nonprofit. It noted that men have accounted for more than three-fourths of job losses, and that unemployed men are more likely to exhibit hostility to their partners than women who find themselves jobless.
Almost half of respondents in a New York Times/CBS poll said unemployment led to more conflicts with family members or friends.
Men were significantly more likely than women to report feeling ashamed most of the time, the poll said. A quarter of those who experienced anxiety or depression said they had gone to see a mental health professional.
Meanwhile, domestic violence shelters are seeing an increased demand for their services due to the economic downturn, according to a March survey by the Mary Kay Foundation.
Soon after he left the bank, Frost began counseling.
“My depression impacted everyone who lives here,” said Frost, 41, who with his wife, Lisa, have a teenage daughter. “We all have gone to various counseling sessions and are all doing well, but it was total shutdown for a awhile.”
Losing the bank was a key factor in his depression. “A big part of it was the bank being my life, and all of a sudden it’s gone,” Frost said, sitting on the patio of their home. He acknowledges taking out his anger and frustrations at home. His marriage suffered.
In February, he wrote this on his Facebook page: “You know you’re in love when you don’t want to fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams.” — Theodor “Dr. Seuss” Geisel. “And that’s how I feel with my wife of 18 years.”
The couple continued to have ups and downs, however, and their relationship reached a nadir last spring.
“She wanted a divorce in April,” he said.
Lisa Frost said, “I couldn’t take how upset he was, and a lot of it was put toward me.”
Last spring police were called to their home on a report of a domestic disturbance. Domestic battery charges were brought, then dropped.
“We’ve reconciled, and she’s still here,” Chuck Frost said.
Lisa Frost, 46, said life since her husband left the bank “was pretty bad. We almost split up. We’re better now. But it’s still stressful because he can’t get a job. We were used to a pretty good lifestyle.”
She still gets an eyebrow wax regularly, for $10, including tip, but doesn’t buy as many clothes. She’s down to working one day a week at a local garden center and is looking for an office job to supplement their income.
“We only buy what we need, which is what we should have done anyway,” she said. “This experience has taught us that.”
Chuck Frost said he’s feeling better these days, “but I wish something would give so I could find gainful employment.”
Hoping to get a full-time job, Frost started “pole-climbing school” with Verizon last May but injured his knee during the training and couldn’t complete the program. He has also applied for a job with the local railroad.
Frost doesn’t want to return to the financial services sector or get into insurance. Ideally, he’d like to get an accounting job, but he has limited his search geographically because his daughter still attends school in the area.
“It has been a struggle,” Frost said. “We get the local paper, but we’re eating at home a lot,” he said.
“I’ve borrowed money from my family to get along,” said Frost, who owns a piece of real estate, a farm, that he might sell. Frost also owns Scott County Storage, which operates in Winchester.
“I bought it in 2008 from some people who had owned it for 10 or 15 years,” Frost said. Storage is big business in Winchester, and nearly all of his storage units are occupied.
He also owns, with his father, a Cessna 182 Skylane plane but wasn’t able to fly it when he was on antidepressants. He says his mental health has improved a great deal in the last few months. He stopped taking the medicine in April but still visits a counselor once a month.
Still, he isn’t as visible downtown as he once was.
“He used to come over every day almost,” said Winchester Mayor Dave Newman, who sells new and vintage guitars at his Dave’s Music in the town square, across from Frost’s former bank.
Bill McLaughlin, a former Winchester alderman, said Frost, whom he considers a friend, “is better now than he was 12 months ago.”
“He’s a good person who needs a chance again, but when you’re confined to a small area, chances are slim, and when you’re tagged with something it’s hard to resurface sometimes,” said McLaughlin, a sales manager at Marshall Chevrolet in downtown Winchester.
Today Frost is still secretary of Winchester’s Kiwanis Club, which is gearing up for its annual Christmas basket campaign. He also is the local official weather observer for the National Weather Service. Every morning he reports the high and low temperatures and any precipitation. He has an official rain gauge in his yard.
He also is a volunteer docent in the town’s Old School Museum. Some exhibits feature Frost’s family history, including a drugstore started in the 1940s that was sold and later closed in 2008, a photo of his grandmother Lucy, who taught school in Winchester in the 1930s, and, of course, the history of the Frost family’s former bank.
On July 2, 2009, First State Bank of Winchester was one of six Illinois banks seized by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. They were controlled and half-owned by Arizona banker and aviation enthusiast Lyle Campbell and his sons. The other half of First State was owned by Frost and his family.
“One of the hardest things I’ve found is that when I worked, I had a purpose,” said Frost, who added that he harbors no ill feelings toward the Campbells or the current owners of his former bank.
Lisa Frost said she feels the worst is over. “Once he gets a job we’ll get back in the groove.”
