In the 1920s, Dr. John A. Kenney left Tuskegee, Alabama after receiving death threats from the Ku Klux Klan. He moved to Newark, New Jersey, and helped found the city's first hospital for African-Americans.

Here, his granddaughters Linda Kenney Miller and her sister Diane Kenney remember their grandfather, and his dedication to the hospital.

George Lengel was born in Roebling, NJ, where his entire family made steel wire at the John A. Roebling's Sons Company.

Here, Lengel remembers growing up in Roebling and the influence his father had on his future.

Steven Wells came to StoryCorps in Macon, Geogia with his daughter, Jennifer.

Here Steven tells Jennifer how he felt about fatherhood.

Mary Johnson's son, Laramiun, was shot and killed by Oshea Israel in 1993. Israel served 17 years in prison.

Here, Mary talks with her son's killer.

After finding out that they could not conceive children, Bob Gerold and his wife Alice decided to adopt a child from China. They were matched with a baby girl named Aimee.

Here, Aimee talks to her father, Bob, about her adoption.

Julian Walker's father, Robert Walker, grew up in a small farming town in North Carolina. At the age of 5, Robert was severely injured in a farming accident.

Here, Walker tells his daughter, Julia Walker Jewell, one of his lasting memories of his father.  

Many veterans seek out the West Los Angeles Veterans Affairs Hospital in hopes of feeling better. Thanks to Anthony Bravo Esparza — known to his friends as “Dreamer” — those veterans often end up looking better, too.

Since the 1970s, Dreamer, a veteran himself, has been giving free haircuts to vets.

He can be found in a red, white, and blue painted trailer parked at the VA, where he averages about 200 haircuts a month.

Last year, Paul Crowley showed up looking for a trim. Today, he’s Dreamer’s assistant.

At StoryCorps, the pair sat down to speak about their friendship.

In the summer of 1991, Bryan Lindsay was riding his bike on a Brooklyn street when he was hit by a van and almost killed.

He was seven years old at the time.

Rowan Allen was the paramedic on the scene, and recently the two men sat down at StoryCorps to remember that day.

Thompson Williams grew up in Oklahoma as one of eight children. His father, Melford Williams, was a tribal leader of the Caddo Nation and a World War II veteran who had a big impact on Thompson’s life.

At StoryCorps, Thompson’s son, Kiamichi-tet, sat down with his dad to learn more about his grandfather.

Fourteen-year-old Kai Leigh Harriott is paralyzed from the chest down, the result of a stray bullet that hit her when she was three.

She was sitting outside on her porch in Dorchester, Massachusetts with her older sister Aja David, who was babysitting at the time.

The family is still dealing with the aftermath of the shooting a decade later.

Some students in the Spring Branch Independent School District in Texas dreaded lunchtime. The school cafeteria meant humiliation because their parents couldn’t afford a hot lunch.

The alternative for these kids was a cold cheese sandwich. Anyone seen leaving the lunch line with that on their plate was marked as being poor.

But that changed when school volunteer Kenny Thompson saw it happen. Kenny recently told that story to kids he works with, 13-year-old Gary Barber and 15-year-old Dakota Gibson.

Thanks to Kenny’s efforts, two school districts in Houston have changed their lunch policy. Now all kids receive the same lunch, whether or not they can afford it. 

Tina Vasquez grew up just outside of New York City in the 1990s.

Her mother, Sonia, raised her with little help, and money was often tight for their family.

At StoryCorps, Sonia told Tina about how she’d take on several jobs to pay the bills.

In 1997, Darius Clark Monroe (L) was a high school honor student who had never been in serious trouble.

But soon after his 16th birthday, he robbed a bank in Stafford, Texas at gunpoint with two of his friends.

Seventeen years later, he sat down at StoryCorps with David Ned, a customer who was in the bank during the robbery.

David and Darius became acquainted while Darius was a film student making a documentary about the robbery called Evolution of a Criminal.

Retired Army Sgt 1st Class Max Voelz first recorded in 2011 to remember his wife, Staff Sgt Kim Voelz. They met on Valentine’s Day, while training to work in Explosive Ordinance Disposal–the Army’s elite bomb squad.

Both Max and Kim were sent to Iraq in 2003. One night, Max called in the location of an explosive and Kim was sent to disarm it. She did not survive the mission.

Around the time Max recorded his first interview, he turned to another bomb tech, Sgt Mary Dague, for support. Mary lost both of her arms in Iraq.

She talked Max through his lowest points, but they didn’t meet face to face until years later, when they recorded for StoryCorps.

Ruth Coker Burks was in her early 20s and raising a small child when the AIDS epidemic hit Arkansas, her home state.

Although she had no formal medical training, Ruth took it upon herself to care for AIDS patients who were abandoned by their families and medical professionals who feared the disease.

Ruth estimates that she has cared for nearly 1000 people since the 1980s. One of those people was Paul Wineland’s partner.

At StoryCorps Ruth told Paul about how she got started after visiting a friend at a hospital where one of the state’s early AIDS patient was dying.

Listen to Ruth’s interview with Jim Harwood, the father of another AIDS patient she cared for during this time.

For decades, Brooklyn’s Coney Island was known for sideshows featuring tattooed ladies, sword swallowers, and Dr. Martin Couney’s incubator babies.

Dr. Couney pioneered the use of incubators to keep premature infants alive in the late 1800s. But the medical establishment initially rejected the practice. So, each summer for 40 years, Dr. Couney funded his work by setting up an exhibition of the babies and charging the public admission.

Parents didn’t have to pay for the medical care, and many children survived who would have never had a chance otherwise.

Ninety-five-year-old Lucille Horn was one of them. Here, she tells her daughter, Barbara, about spending the summer of 1920 in an incubator on Coney Island.

Roberto Olivera grew up in the 1960s just outside of Los Angeles, California.

As a teenager, he worked multiple jobs to support his family, but would come home to a physically and verbally abusive stepfather.

At StoryCorps, Roberto tells his wife, Debra, about how his mother helped him escape.

Adam Graff is a member of New Orleans’ all-volunteer, mental health crisis unit.

The group works with the New Orleans Police Department and is often described as a SWAT team for mental illness and suicide crisis situations.

After Hurricane Katrina, Adam and his colleagues helped residents cope.

At StoryCorps, he sat down with his wife, Jacqueline, to talk about his work.

With her mother away, Chloe spent a great deal of time at her grandparents’ home becoming especially close with her grandmother, Doris Louise Rolison.

Despite living in the Arizona desert, Doris, who died in May, 1988, at the age of 67, maintained a lush garden of herbs and vegetables. Chloe would help harvest the food to make dishes from recipes found in one of her grandmother’s treasured cookbooks.

At StoryCorps, Chloe remembers the happy memories and life lessons taught to her by her grandmother, many of which took place while cooking in Doris’ kitchen.

In 1965, Tom Houck was a high school senior when he decided to drop out of school and join the fight for civil rights.

Leaving Jacksonville, Florida, and heading to Selma, Alabama, Tom, 19, eventually met Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and quickly volunteered to work for Dr. King’s Atlanta-based Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC).

Soon after his arrival in Atlanta, Tom was invited to the King home for lunch and Dr. King’s wife—Coretta—asked him to become the family’s driver.

Tom, who has continued to spend his life fighting for civil rights, came to StoryCorps with his friend, Angelo Fuster (pictured below left), to share memories of his time with the King family.   

Mary Johnson-Roy first came to StoryCorps in 2011 to talk about her bond with the young man who killed her son. Years later, she married a man who lives with a similar tragedy. StoryCorps brings an update to her story.

Now, a conversation that reminds us how being a father can be about much more than biology. In 2007, after volunteering to care for infants born to drug-addicted mothers in Baltimore, Juan Calvo knew he wanted to do more. So he and his husband, Darrow Brown, became foster dads. At StoryCorps, they remember the moment they met their first child and talk about the heartbreak and joy of being foster parents. Two years later, they adopted their, son, Lucas, who is now 7 years old. They continue to open their home to foster children.

Now, a conversation that reminds us how being a father can be about much more than biology. In 2007, after volunteering to care for infants born to drug-addicted mothers in Baltimore, Juan Calvo knew he wanted to do more. So he and his husband, Darrow Brown, became foster dads. At StoryCorps, they remember the moment they met their first child and talk about the heartbreak and joy of being foster parents. Two years later, they adopted their, son, Lucas, who is now 7 years old. They continue to open their home to foster children.

StoryCorps gives people the chance to sit down together and have a conversation they’ve never had before. Five Mualimm-ak did just that with his son, Omar, who was five years old when his father was first incarcerated. By the time Mr. Mualimm-ak was finished serving his sentence for weapons charges, he had been in prison for nearly a dozen years, many of those spent in solitary confinement. When he was released in 2012, Omar was a senior in high school. The two have had difficulty connecting since then. They came to StoryCorps together to talk about their relationship for the first time.

When Wally Funk was 8 years old, she jumped off the roof of her barn while wearing a Superman cape, hoping to fly. That desire never left her, and as an adult she became a pilot and flight instructor. But for Wally, the ultimate destination was always outer space. She almost got the chance to go in 1961. That year, she was part of a group of female pilots who took part in tests to determine if women were fit for space travel. The project was run by the same doctor who developed tests for NASA astronauts. The women, who became known as the Mercury 13, passed many of the same tests as the men, but never got to go to space. More than half a century later, Wally Funk hasn’t given up. She was interviewed in Dallas by one of her flight students, Mary Holsenbeck. Wally bought a ticket for Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic and hopes to be onboard its maiden voyage into space.

33-year-old April Gibson talks to her teenage son, Gregory Bess, about how she felt when he was born.

Joanna Wright and her friend Tara Cummings talk about surviving years of abuse at a religious reform school in Louisiana.

John Torres Jr. talks to his friend, Abraham Guzman, about his dad’s career as a wrestler, and his legacy in and outside of the ring.

Flip and Christine Cuddy remember their mother, Susan Ahn Cuddy, a Navy gunnery officer who served in World War II.

Judge Olly Neal tells his daughter how discovering African American author Frank Yerby's books in his school library turned him around academically.

Guy Bryant talks to his foster son, Romario Vassell, about what it means to be a foster parent to more than 50 kids.

Sylvia Grosvold was 5 and half years old when she lost her mother to suicide. A decade later, she came to StoryCorps with her dad Josh Weiner to talk about that day.

Russell King sat down with his music teacher Paige Macklin, to tell her about a choice she made, and how it changed his life.

NASA Engineer Joey Jefferson talks with his six-year-old nephew, Jerry Morrison, about their shared passion for space.

Ruth Owens tells her grandson, James Taylor, about the four decades she worked as a nurse in rural Tennessee.

Lillian Bloodworth speaks with her husband, John Bloodworth, about why she spent nearly half her life donating blood.

Cole Phillips lost his vision just months before starting high school. As a freshman, he met paraprofessional Rugenia Keefe -- or Miss. Ru -- who attended class with him for the next four years. Shortly before graduating, Cole interviewed Ms. Ru using StoryCorps Connect.

Debra Fisher, an occupational therapist in the New York City Public School System, speaks with her friend Emma Pelosi, a special education teacher, about reopening in the middle of a pandemic.

Ngoc Nguyen came to StoryCorps with her GED instructor Chris Myers to talk about her childhood and the impact his teaching has had on her.

Abigail Jean and her father, Rich Jean, thank their local librarian, Hasina Islam, for encouraging Abigail’s love of reading.

In the 1940s, Dr. Charles Drew was a surgeon and blood scientist, and today he is known as the “Father of Blood Banks.” His daughter, Dr. Charlene Drew Jarvis, came to StoryCorps with her son, Ernest Jarvis, to remember him and his work.

Rev. Farrell Duncombe talks about growing up in Montgomery, AL, and the role models who shaped him, including his Sunday school teacher, Rosa Parks.

For the 20th anniversary of 9/11, Former Marine Sergeant Jason Thomas opens up to his youngest son, Jason Christian Thomas, about the search and rescue efforts he did at Ground Zero.

Nearly 30 years after surviving a house fire as a kid, Myeshia Oates reunites with the Los Angeles County firefighter who saved her life, Derek Bart.

Gina Olaya and Kellen Quinton remember their family member, Wilma Mankiller, and talk about how she made history when she became the first woman Chief of the Cherokee Nation.

Alexander Landau spoke with his friend, Nina Askew, about the support they’ve given each other after both experienced violent arrests from Colorado Police.

Jesus and Suzanne Valle reflect on their decision to take in children from families struggling with opioid addiction.

Temica Hunt came to StoryCorps with her mother, Neocothia Bowens-Robinson, to talk about their family’s multi-generation love of roller skating.

Raynita Snipes Johnson remembers her great-uncle, US Army veteran Maceo Snipes, a Black man lynched for voting in 1946.

Ghuan Featherstone came to StoryCorps with his mentee Jordan Humphreys to talk about their shared love of horses and horseback riding.

Mary Othella Burnette tells her daughter, Debora Hamilton Palmer, about “Granny Hayden,” a second-generation midwife in Black Appalachia.

Christina Rogers and Vester Acoff sat down to remember the death of their sister, Latasha Harlins, whose killing over 30 years ago was one of the catalysts for the 1992 Los Angeles Riots.

Fred Gilliam and Jerry Harris remember their mentor, Dr. Vivien Thomas, a surgical researcher who developed groundbreaking medical techniques.

Tony Perri speaks with his grandson, Jeffrey Perri, about being an older gay man and the closeness of their relationship.

Jim Von Stein (Jim VS):  My mom used to listen to, uh, people like Elvis and Patsy Cline, which really that touched my heart, for those lyrics. 

And my dad, he barely played on a guitar. He played three chords, and I think one of ‘em was wrong. But every once in a while, when he’d drink, he’d get that guitar out and play, you know?

Of course, when I wanted to get a guitar my dad said, ‘You’re not going to have that noise maker around here’? 

But that made me become a lyricist for sure, because that was the only way I could connect to music, you know? It was through lyrics… still telling stories. 

But, you know, you gotta have heart strings. And that’s why I write songs. I try to write not just about me or my life but everybody’s life.

Jason Von Stein (Jason VS): You worked at the shipyard for many years and they would send you out to San Francisco. And you really missed us.

I remember you came back and you wrote this song, ‘Always Missing You’.

[ALWAYS MISSING YOU]

And then we did a recording of that for Mom. I guess I was five…

When you were writing those songs, those were number one hits. 

Jason VS: When did you first realize you were sick, Dad? 

Jim VS: Well, they told me I had severe emphysema. There was a doctor and she came in and she said, ‘Here’s a picture of your lung.’ And they were coal black. 

They told me, you know, that I had an expiration date.

It’s like you’re going underwater, and you’re trying to catch your breath. That’s what it feels like all the time.

But I’m still breathing. That’s what matters. 

Jim VS: I remember you asked me, uh, what, uh, were my regrets… Did I have any…. And I told you I regretted that I didn’t go out and play my music. 

You stopped everything you were doing, and learned songs of mine. You learned every one of them. And I didn’t realize it until you started playing ‘em.

Why did you decide to do it? I mean… 

Jason VS: Because your songs deserve to be heard. You can’t spend your entire life devoting yourself to something. And then nobody hears that? That’s not ok.

Jim VS: You know, you got so much time in your hourglass and it’s how you use it. And that’s up to you. 

Long after I’m dead and gone, and people forgot who I was… the song has its own life. 

And you are the voice for my songs.