1 of 3
Born in the Caucasus Mountains of southern Russia, Irina and her single mother moved to Siberia when she was 3 years old, living in an old Trans-Siberian railroad car that housed two families per car and used a woodstove for heat.
2 of 3
Irina and Louis Chandler live in a home built by Louis’ father in Westmoreland County. © Corey Miller Photo
3 of 3
The Chandler family lives on a 600-acre grain farm property that is also the homebase for Louis Chandler’s business, Crookhorn Nursery. Irina is a dentist with an office in Warsaw, Chandler Family Dentistry. © Corey Miller Photo
Born in the Caucasus Mountains of southern Russia, Irina and her single mother moved to Siberia when she was 3 years old, living in an old Trans-Siberian railroad car that housed two families per car and used a woodstove for heat. She recalls that while they had no TV, they did have a big radio. While her mother worked nights, the child would listen to the Voice of America radio station out of Brighton Beach. The faraway voices talking of U.S. freedom spoke to the 7-year-old girl. “We’re living in communist Russia and it’s very oppressive,” she remembers. “As a kid, I wanted to go to the U.S. so badly.”
Her mother finished college after Irina was born, taking the child with her to classes. “It was my first experience of school,” Irina recalls fondly. After completing third grade, she was sent to live with her grandmother, where she stayed until she completed eighth grade. Then the Russian economy collapsed. Next came bakery school in St. Petersburg, followed by three years of working in a bakery during the day and going to night school in the evenings.
It was at the bakery that she met her first husband, a college student, who had a grandfather living in the U.S. When her new husband’s family invited the young couple to join them, they flew into Dulles Airport in 1993 to begin a new life. Irina was 19 years old, spoke no English and had no friends or family here. Overwhelmed, her husband returned to Russia within a couple of years, while Irina dug in her heels and forged ahead. “I cleaned houses, I babysat and I tried to learn English,” she says. “I’d go to the library and check out a book along with the same audiobook, listening and reading along.” Watching television also helped. “I watched ‘I Love Lucy’ and I could understand Ricky Ricardo pretty well.”
Before long, Irina was taking classes at VCU in Richmond, trying her best to hang on. “I was just surviving, working and going to school,” she says. Then one day in 1996 during her Organic Chemistry lab, she met Louis Chandler, who was working on his master’s degree in environmental science. The two hit it off and began to spend time together, talking and walking around campus. After being friends for a year, they went on a date. On their second date, Louis took her home to meet his family.
“Home” is the impressive brick house where the Chandlers and their two children now live. It’s also the place where Louis grew up from the age of eight. His father had built the house in 1981, modeling it on traditional Williamsburg architecture, and his mother had laid out extensive garden beds throughout the 600-acre grain farm property. It’s about as far from a railroad car as can be imagined.
While the two continued to date, Louis went on to work for his father’s car business from 1998 through 2001. Irina got her undergraduate degree and then to nursing school, intent on becoming a nurse-practitioner. That left only weekends for the engaged couple to see each other. During a trip to Paris in 2001, Irina bought the wedding dress of her dreams. “Once I found that, I wanted to get married so I could wear it,” she jokes. The marriage took place in 2001, while Irina was working on her master’s degree and employed at St. Mary’s Hospital. Once married, Louis chose a new path as well. “I knew if I was going to do something different, now was the time,” he explains.
With his interest in natural sciences, Louis wanted to be an entrepreneur, so he started apprenticing with local growers doing field work. He saw opening his own nursery as the best of both worlds, enabling him to use his biology background and start his own business. Founded in 2007, Crookhorn Nursery grows a selection of trees in various sizes to supply the mid-Atlantic. “I like people, I have a good grasp of the industry and I enjoy working outside,” he says. “It comes easily to me.”
Because of Irina’s Russian upbringing, her childhood dental experiences had been painful and unpleasant. After becoming a patient at VCU’s dental school, she was exposed to a completely different kind of dentistry. “I always liked working with my hands,” she says. “And I just happened to apply to dental school and get accepted before medical school.” While going to dental school, she worked nights as a security guard for VCU, doing her homework and keeping an eye on security monitors. Because of her accented English, she once called 911 about a fight and the dispatcher heard “fire,” sending a fire truck to the scene rather than a police car.
During Irina’s third year of dental school, she had her first child, a daughter. “My Mom came to help and never left,” Irina says with a chuckle. After graduating dental school in 2005, she began working with a local dentist, followed by 2 years working at Westmoreland Medical Center. But it was in 2007, the year her son was born, that she learned of a Warsaw dentist who was retiring and looking to sell his practice. “We found out we got the loan to buy the practice while we were on the way to the hospital to deliver my son!” she recalls with a laugh.
Fortunately the dental building had a second floor where her children could be looked after and still be nearby. Taking on her own practice with a toddler and a baby wasn’t easy, nor was making ends meet for the practice’s first few years. “I had so much responsibility, having to learn a lot of oral surgery techniques so I didn’t have to send my patients off to Richmond when they needed something more,” she says. “Being a mom and having a new business was exhausting. And our marriage had its share of challenges, but we made the best of them because we believe in commitment.”
Eventually her little ones became teenagers and things got easier. These days, their daughter attends St. Margaret’s School in Tappahannock and their son is a student at New Community School in Richmond. With her dental practice firmly established, Irina finally has time for some of her own interests. “I keep chickens, geese, ducks and goats, and I love reading,” she says, specifying history and classics, including, naturally, Russian literary classics. Daughter Natalie is named after a character in Tolstoy’s “War and Peace.” Restoring her mother-in-law’s extensive garden beds is another activity that brings her great pleasure. “My love of gardening started here.”
And while Irina feels like she’s had many different lives already, Louis continues to be impressed by his wife’s pluck and determination. “She came here, learned English, made it through 4 years of college on her own and got her citizenship on her own,” he says, ticking off only a few of her many accomplishments.
Given the atypical upbringing Irina had, it’s not surprising how important it’s always been to her to provide a stable family life for her children.
“In some ways, I still have PTSD from my childhood, which made me want to settle down and finish college,” she explains, adding that it also made her want the best education possible for her children so they could have all the opportunities she didn’t. “Education and reading are what saved me. I read my way out of poverty.”
Looking ahead, both Chandlers expect to retire on the farm, having the freedom to do what they want and staying healthy enough to enjoy it all. “Life is a path you take and it’s full of crossroads, but I’m glad I decided to go down this road with her,” Louis says. “People think the grass is always greener somewhere else, but the grass is greener where you water it, and we’ve watered it right here where we are.”
For Irina, the combination of living in the U.S., having the stability of family and a fulfilling dental practice, motivated her to make the best of every challenge thrown in her path. “Living on a farm is wonderful and if heaven is like this, I’m good,” she says, gesturing toward a bed of colorful zinnias and lantana. “I feel like we create our own reality. I ended up exactly where I wanted to go.”
Chandler Family Dentistry in Warsaw offers a patient-focused, relationship-driven approach to comprehensive dentistry. They listen to patients’ concerns, address their overall health challenges, and discuss how they may be impacting oral health. All that is good begins with a healthy smile.
Chandler Family Dentistry I 253 Main Street, Warsaw 22572 I chandlerdentistrywarsaw.com I 804-333-0226
Crookhorn Nursery was founded in 2007 and is owned and operated by Louis F. Chandler. Crookhorn offers a variety of quality trees in containers of 7-gallon, 15-gallon, and 25-gallon sizes. Customers include landscape companies and garden centers throughout the mid-Atlantic including the Baltimore/Washington area, Richmond and Charlottesville.
Crookhorn Nursery I 2178 Crookhorn Road, Montross 22520 I crookhornnursery.com I 804-493-8236
