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.

In 1981 Army Master Sergeant Roy P. Benavidez, a Green Beret, received the Medal of Honor for his service during the Vietnam War.

On his first tour there, he was severely injured by a land mine and told that he’d never walk again. After a year of rehabilitation, he walked out of the hospital and eventually returned to Vietnam for a second tour.

That’s when he spearheaded a daring rescue, saving the lives of eight fellow soldiers. In the process his jaw was broken and he was shot 37 times.

At StoryCorps, his daughter Yvette Benavidez Garcia and her husband, Rene, remember the aftermath of the battle.

Dr. James Kent Treadway was a beloved pediatrician in New Orleans for nearly 30 years.

Children loved him for his eccentric costumes and his ability to make even the most nervous patients laugh.

But after Hurricane Katrina, hearing his patients’ grief took a toll on him. Two months after the storm, he committed suicide.

At StoryCorps, his wife, Tyra Treadway, and his daughter, Ardyn, remember him.

After Army Private First Class Brian Orolin returned from Afghanistan in 2011, everything seemed fine. But as the years went by, his wife, Donna, could tell something wasn’t right. He became paranoid, suffered constant headaches, and would isolate himself in his bedroom with the lights dimmed.

Then, on November 19, Brian left his home and family. He’s been missing ever since.

At StoryCorps, Donna remembered the day he returned from Afghanistan, and the moments before he disappeared.

If anyone has information regarding Brian’s whereabouts, please contact the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office near Spring, Texas. 

On Oct 4, 1971, George Giffe, a 35-year-old Tennessee man suffering from mental illness, hijacked a charter plane at gunpoint from the Nashville airport. He also claimed to be in possession of a bomb.

Running low on fuel, the plane’s pilot landed in Jacksonville, FL, where the FBI was waiting. After a brief standoff, Giffe killed the two hostages who remained onboard before turning the gun on himself.

One of the two was Brent Downs—the pilot of the plane.

At StoryCorps, Brent’s son Andy spoke with Angelia Sheer, the daughter of the man who killed his father.

Days before Halloween in 1995, Janette Fennell, her husband Greig, and their 9-month-old son Alex arrived home from a night out with friends. After pulling into the garage of their San Francisco home, they were confronted by two armed men who forced the couple at gunpoint into the trunk of the Fennell’s car and drove away.

During the several-hour ordeal, which the family survived, both Janette and Greig believed that Alex was still in the backseat of the car in his car seat were they had left him.

The carjackers were never caught, but Janette and her husband continued to drive the car they were kidnapped in for several years.

Alex, now in college, sat down for StoryCorps with his mom to talk about the experience.

Janette went on to devote herself to improving car safety by founding a nonprofit that lobbies for car safety reform. Due to her efforts, emergency trunk releases are now standard equipment on all new cars. She has also worked on legislation requiring child safe windows and rear view cameras on all cars.

Teresa Valko’s family has been battling Alzheimer’s—a progressive disease that attacks the brain causing memory loss, the deterioration of thought and language skills, and changes in behavior—for generations. According to Teresa, on her mother’s side of the family, there is a 100% occurrence of Alzheimer’s disease.

For many years, Teresa, who lives in California, would spend hours on the phone chatting with her mother, Evelyn Wilson, in Georgia. But in 2007, Evelyn began to show the early symptoms of Alzheimer’s.

At StoryCorps, Teresa sat down with friends Lisa Farrell and Doris Barnhart to talk about her weekly telephone conversations with her mother and how they have changed over the years, as well as what she has learned about her own future health after undergoing genetic testing.

Marge Klindera spent decades teaching home economics to Illinois middle and high school students. As she was transitioning into retirement, she began looking for other ways to share her years of knowledge and experience. In 1983, she began working at a seasonal call center—answering questions from those needing last-minute information on cooking a turkey.

Each Thanksgiving, for more than 30 years, Butterball has run their Turkey Talk-Line. Operating from October to December, trained professionals like Marge answer thousands of turkey related questions from home cooks across the United States and Canada.

At StoryCorps, Marge, 79, sat down with her longtime coworker, Carol Miller, 68, to remember some of the best callers they have had, as well as some of the best advice they have dished out.

In the early 1980s, Tom Graziano and his wife adopted an almost 2-year-old boy named John. As a child, he was constantly sick, but doctors where never able to determine why.

In 1986, when John was in the second grade at Central Elementary School in Wilmette, Illinois, his parents discovered the reason for his health problems—John was HIV positive having contracted the disease from his biological mother.

At StoryCorps, Tom sat down with John’s elementary school principal, Paul Nilsen, to discuss the reaction of other students attending the school and among members of their suburban Chicago community to John during the AIDS epidemic in America.

John died in May 1989, just days shy of his 10th birthday.

Henry Jimenez and Akiva Johnson, both 17, are classmates and close friends at the High School for Youth and Community Development in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn. Now juniors, they met freshman year while participating in StoryCorpsU.

StoryCorpsU is an interactive year-long program for high school students that utilizes StoryCorps interviewing techniques, radio broadcasts, and animated shorts to support the development of identity and social intelligence in students. One aim is to help teachers better appreciate and understand students as whole people by encouraging teens to share their experiences outside of the classroom with those in the classroom.

In their StoryCorps conversation, Akiva and Henry discuss the challenges they have had to confront in their daily lives, and how grateful they both are for the support—often unknowingly—they have provided each other, by sharing stories they have never before told.

While they were talking, Akiva revealed that in October 2012, after Hurricane Sandy devastated much of the eastern coast of the United States, he and his mother were displaced from their home. They spent parts of the next three years in homeless shelters across New York City—including last Christmas—something Henry was unaware of.

Henry has also had to overcome difficulties. When he was 13 he left Mexico and came to the United States to live with an aunt, leaving behind his parents and younger brother. The challenges faced by a young boy coming to an unfamiliar country were eased by the support he received from Akiva.

They both expect that their friendship, which was forged in school by having the opportunity to open up and share personal stories, will endure—even after Henry follows his dream and enlists in the Marine Corps.

Click here to learn more about StoryCorpsU.

In 2014, Nick Hodges and his wife, Charlotte Wheelock, were living in Albuquerque, New Mexico, with their 4- and 6-year-old sons when Nick developed a condition—spinal stenosis—that caused him to be temporarily paralyzed from the waist down.

Already struggling to make ends meet, Charlotte took a leave of absence from her job to care for their children while Nick was hospitalized, and without any steady income, their family lost their home.

Charlotte heard about a job opportunity in another state, so their family packed up and relocated to Seattle, Washington, hoping for a new start. But before they could establish themselves in their new city, Nick ended up back in the hospital leaving their family once again unable to pay rent.

Homeless for 14 months, Charlotte eventually found steady work—she is now employed at one of the shelters the family once lived in—and in time they also managed to find affordable housing for their family.

At StoryCorps, Charlotte and Nick remember what it was like to be a family without a home.

In the 1964 presidential election, Republican Senator Barry Goldwater from Arizona ran against Democratic incumbent Lyndon Johnson who had assumed office following the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. LBJ won in a landslide, but there was another candidate in the race who has largely been forgotten by history: Mrs. Yetta Bronstein, a Jewish housewife from the Bronx.

One reason Mrs. Bronstein remains absent from the history books is that although she ran, she didn’t actually exist. She was the creation of professional media pranksters Alan and Jeanne Abel. The husband and wife team cooked up Yetta while doing a nightclub act, and decided she should run for the highest office in the land. Registering her as a write-in candidate, she was listed as a member of the Best Party, with a platform that included national bingo and lowering the voting age to 18 so that juvenile delinquents would have something to do (the 26th Amendment was ratified 1971).

Jeanne, a gifted improviser, posed as Yetta, promising voters 16 ounces in every pound and offering free hot dogs and bagels in exchange for votes. She only gave reporters radio interviews because unlike Jeanne who was in her 20s, Yetta was the middle-aged wife of a New York City cab driver. At one point during the campaign, she wrote to President Johnson offering to end her run if he would name her as his running mate (Click here to read Yetta’s letter). Alan, her campaign manager, perpetuated the ruse by using a photo of his own Jewish mother in their election materials.

The Yetta Bronstein hoax is just one of scores of pranks the Abels orchestrated over the past 60 years. The one they are best known for is attempting to advance the Society for Indecency to Naked Animals (SINA), which aimed, in the name of morality, to put pants on the world’s creatures. SINA’s slogan was, “A nude horse is a rude horse.”

Proving that no prank can go too far, Alan once even faked his own death, leading to a January 2, 1980, obituary in The New York Times. Two days later, for the first time in their history, the newspaper of record ran a retraction of an obituary explaining, “An obituary in The New York Times on Wednesday reported incorrectly that Alan Abel was dead. Mr. Abel held a news conference yesterday…”

The audio for this story includes archival recordings of live radio appearances Jeanne made during the 1964 and 1968 presidential campaigns when Yetta ran a second time for president. In between her runs at the White House, Yetta also ran for mayor of New York City, a seat in Britain’s parliament, and wrote a book, The President I Almost Was by Yetta Bronstein. Years later, their daughter, Jenny Abel, produced and directed a film about her father titled “Able Raises Cain.”

Asked if they’d consider running Yetta against the current field of presidential hopefuls, Jeanne responded, “The comedy is already happening.”

Jeanne and Alan sat down for StoryCorps in their rural Connecticut home. Surrounded by countless boxes filled with documentation of their life’s work, they tell the true story behind their fake candidate.

Click here for more information on the Abel’s hoaxes.

Vito de la Cruz’s parents were already separated when he was born, and when he was 6 months old, his father left him in the care of his 19-year-old aunt, Iris de la Cruz, a woman he called Nena.

Vito’s extended family traveled the migrant trail, finding work on farms across the United States. At 5 years old, Vito joined them in the fields. He remembers the excitement of traveling in the summers with his aunts, uncles, and grandmother from tomato fields in South Texas, to cherry orchards in Ohio, and sugar beet farms in North Dakota. During the days, they worked side-by-side, and in the evenings, they gathered together for dinner.

But their family’s migrant lifestyle was not easy; it was “equal parts hardship and poverty.” When he was 13, Border Patrol agents raided the farm where Vito and his family were working and rounded up undocumented workers. Witnessing workers’ fear of law enforcement struck a “profound chord in his being” and changed the course of his life.

Vito had always excelled in school, with Nena’s encouragement. She, herself, was the first person in the de la Cruz family to graduate high school, and she later went on to college. Following Nena’s example, Vito left South Texas for Yale University and then went on to attend law school at the University of California, Berkeley.

After law school, Vito began volunteering with the United Farm Workers union and focused the early part of his legal career on immigrant and farmworker rights. Years later, he became a federal public defender in Nevada before moving to Bellevue, Washington, where he continues to practice civil rights law.

Vito came to StoryCorps with his wife, Maria Sefchick-Del Paso, to remember how his childhood and his loving Nena shaped his future.

Vito’s story is one of 53 work stories featured in our new book, Callings: The Purpose and Passion of Work, now available in bookstores.

Chris López always knew there was something different about her youngest child Gabe. Assigned female at birth, Gabe always felt like he was a boy.

Gabe was always more comfortable in clothes traditionally worn by little boys (cargo pants and superhero shirts), but often switched back and forth between those and outfits often worn by little girls. Just after his seventh birthday, he convinced his parents to let him cut off his long hair and get a Mohawk—a haircut he had been wanting for years. This is also about the time that Gabe started dressing only as a boy and answering exclusively to “he” and not “she.”

At first, Chris was concerned that Gabe, being so young, might change his mind. She was scared of how people would treat him as he transitioned. But after seeing how Gabe responded to the changes in his hair and clothing, she felt confident that he had made the right decision.

Last summer, their family attended a camp for transgender, gender creative, and gender non-conforming youth in Tucson, Arizona. There, Gabe met similar kids and made three new best friends—Luke, Cooper, and Brock (who among other things taught Gabe how to pee standing up).

Gabe, who will soon be nine years old, has been attending the same school since kindergarten, and this past August when he started third grade, for the first time, he began having others refer to him by his preferred gender pronouns—”he” and “him.”

Gabe and his mother (pictured in the player above) recently came to the StoryCorps MobileBooth to talk about what it’s been like for him to be transgender, and his fears about the future.

Bill Sayenga’s father died when he was just four years old leaving behind his mother, Marie, and his older sister Louise.

In order to support her family, Marie found a job with the Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, recorder of deeds office as a secretary, but her pay—about a dollar an hour and just over $2,000 a year—was miserable. Although it allowed her to provide a home for her family, the money was only enough for them to just get by.

For 11 years Marie worked at the recorder of deeds’ office, and according to Louise, she hated it. But for all that the job lacked, it did provide Marie with insights into the inner workings of her local government. She recognized the need for change and in 1949, Marie ran for tax collector in the borough of Bethel.

Being both a woman and a Democrat made her a long shot. For over 50 years, men had been elected tax collector, and for the previous 24, Merle Long held the office. Marie lost that first race, but in 1953 she made a second run and unseated Long by just nine votes.

Marie would hold onto the job for the next 24 years, winning five subsequent elections. In 1973, in her final race, she received more votes than anyone else on the ballot running for any office in the borough.

Marie died in February 1993 at the age of 83.

Bill came to StoryCorps with Marie’s granddaughter, Ellen Riek (pictured above), to remember their family’s influential and powerful matriarch.

In 1981, when she was 20 years old, Donna Engeman enlisted in the United States Army. Prior to joining, Donna had not only never set foot outside of the country, but she had never even left the state of Minnesota.

While stationed in Germany, she met Long Island native John Engeman. Living in the barracks, they had what soldiers often refer to as a “barracks romance”--a fling that does not last long. But Donna and Sergeant Engeman quickly fell in love and in February 1983 they married.

Months after the wedding, Donna, pregnant with their first child, a boy, and believing herself to be a better spouse than soldier, left the Army and returned to the states to raise Patrick.

John remained in the military and in January 2006, as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom, he was deployed to Baghdad. On May 14, 2006, an improvised explosive device detonated near his Humvee during a combat operation killing him and a fellow soldier.

Chief Warrant Officer John W. Engeman is buried in Arlington National Cemetery. Donna and John’s son, Patrick, is currently an Army major who has been deployed overseas four times.

Donna came to StoryCorps with their daughter, Nicole McKenna (pictured together at left), to share stories of John as a young husband and father.

Last year, Savannah Phelan was on the internet looking up the organization where her mother, Kellie, works as an advocate and mentor when she came across a video of Kellie talking about giving birth to Savannah while she was in jail. Kellie was seven months pregnant in 2007 when she was arrested on a misdemeanor drug possession charge and sent to New York City’s Rikers Island jail complex. Two weeks before her release, Savannah was born in a nearby hospital.

At StoryCorps, Kellie recalled the joy of spending time with Savannah alongside the parents of other newborn babies in the hospital’s nursery, as well as the shame she felt at being shackled and wearing an orange Department of Corrections jumpsuit. Kellie was returned to jail while Savannah remained in the hospital a few additional days. Soon after, they were reunited and spent Kellie’s final weeks in custody together at the Rose M. Singer Center--a women’s jail on Rikers Island also known as “Rosie’s”--that includes a small nursery where mothers can stay with their children until they are up to a year old.

After her release, Kellie and Savannah moved into Hour Children, a Queens-based nonprofit that provides supportive programs and transitional housing for women and mothers that have been incarcerated. Today, she works there as a program coordinator, mentoring youth whose parents are formerly or currently incarcerated, and often speaks openly about her own experiences.

At StoryCorps, Savannah, 8, and Kellie sat down for one of the first times to talk about Savannah’s birth, and how she feels after learning that her mother had been in jail at the time.

Originally aired August 5, 2016 on NPR’s Morning Edition.

Danny Cortez was the founder and pastor of the New Heart Community Southern Baptist Church in La Mirada, California, in 2014 when his 16-year-old son, Drew, told him that he was gay. Up until that time, Danny’s church would either recommend celibacy or reparative therapy--a widely discredited form of treatment that identifies homosexuality as a mental disorder with the goal of converting people to heterosexuality--to congregants who identified themselves as gay or lesbian.

Even before Drew’s coming out, Danny had slowly begun to reevaluate his views on homosexuality and whether he was doing more harm than good. When his neighbor invited him to visit the HIV clinic where he worked, Danny was introduced to a community of people he had not previously known much about. This began, for him, a gradual change of heart.

Years later, as he was driving Drew to school, “Same Love” by Macklemore & Ryan Lewis came on the radio. Danny liked it a lot but didn’t understand that it was a celebration of LGBT love. Drew, encouraged by his father’s affection for the song, then revealed to him that he was gay.

Realizing that they could no longer keep this secret from those they love, Drew posted a video online, and a week later, Danny delivered a sermon to his congregation about his changing views on homosexuality. As a result of the sermon, the Southern Baptist Convention cut ties with Danny’s church and his congregation split leading he and other members to form a separate LGBT inclusive, non-denominational church.

Danny and Drew came to StoryCorps to remember the sermon that changed their lives.

Originally aired on August 28, 2016 on NPR’s Weekend Edition

For as long as she can remember, Eileen Kushner has had a difficult time reading and doing simple math. Growing up in Detroit the 1950s, she recalls her teachers calling her “stupid” and “lazy,” but no one knew she had a processing disorder until she was tested and diagnosed by a psychiatrist when she was in her mid-30s. “It was like a door in my brain would drop and it wouldn’t allow me to process any of the information.”

After graduating high school, Eileen married Larry Kushner and over time they had three daughters. Eileen hoped that staying out of the workforce would help her hide her learning difficulties, but surviving on the money Larry earned as a bank teller was hard. There were days when their family didn’t have enough food in the refrigerator, so Eileen began to look for a job.

She worked briefly as a secretary but was fired because her notes were riddled with misspellings, and then Larry suggested that she apply for a job at the McDonald’s next to the bank where he worked. Eileen was overjoyed when she got the job and started by making French fries and milkshakes and cleaning the floors. She secretly hoped she would not be promoted because she knew that would mean working at the cash register.

In the 1960s, McDonald’s cashiers manually calculated the cost of an order, and Eileen was afraid that a promotion would lead others to discover her secret -- she wasn’t able to add. But she did so well with her first responsibilities that a promotion to the register soon followed. For Eileen, it was a tragic moment, and she told Larry she was going to quit. That’s when he came up with a solution.

Larry brought home different denominations of bills from the bank, and Eileen brought home Big Mac boxes, French fry containers, and cups, and they began playing McDonald’s at their kitchen counter. Larry would pretend to be the customer and Eileen would practice adding up his order. They did this every day until Eileen felt comfortable enough to accept her promotion.

Eileen moved her way up at McDonald’s eventually becoming a manager and then attending Hamburger University. Together Eileen and Larry have owned five separate McDonald’s restaurants (currently, they own one). Now in their 70s, she credits Larry with their success while he believes that it was her dogged perseverance and hard work that got them to where they are today.

They came to StoryCorps to remember their earlier struggles.

Originally aired September 16, 2016 on NPR’s Morning Edition.

During the 2016 presidential race, many families are finding their viewpoints incompatible with those of even their closest relatives. So rather than spend their time constantly arguing, they have agreed to just avoid discussing politics all together.

Jenn Stanley, 29, and her father, Peter, have experienced a strain on their relationship for years. Political discussions regularly leave them angry and frustrated with each other. Jenn, a self-described liberal who turns to yoga to clear her head, writes about feminist issues for various publications and produces a podcast about women’s rights. Peter, who relaxes by shooting his guns, works in construction and began voting Republican in 1980 during the Reagan revolution.

Whenever they are together and the news comes on the television, they argue.

When Jenn was younger, she considered Peter to be her best friend. She played softball--which she hated--because Peter liked baseball; he coached her team because he thought she wanted to play. But as she got older and left for college, their views grew further apart, making it difficult for them to talk about many of the things that are most important to each of them.

They came to StoryCorps to try to put their differences aside, and listen to each other’s points of view.

Originally aired November 4, 2016, on NPR’s Morning Edition.

Leslye Huff (left) and her partner, Mary Ostendorf (right), met in 1983. Leslye was open about her feelings for Mary and wasn’t shy about publicly showing her affection--even on their first date. Mary felt less comfortable with public displays of affection and had not told many people in her life about her sexuality, including her family.

When Mary introduced Leslye to her mother, Agnes, they did not immediately reveal to her the nature of their relationship, but during that meeting Leslye felt a connection with Agnes. “I liked her. She was short like me, and pretty vivacious. She and I sat and talked and I thought the makings of a pretty good friendship was beginning.”

Later that year, days before they gathered for Thanksgiving, Leslye picked up the phone and told Agnes the truth about her relationship with Mary.

At StoryCorps, Mary and Leslye discuss what happened after the phone call and how their relationship with Agnes changed in the years that followed.

Originally aired November 27, 2016, on NPR’s Weekend Edition.

On Christmas Eve 1956, Judy Charest’s mother drove with her to a bridge and jumped off into the cold waters of the river below. One of the men who helped rescue them that day was Harold Hogue. At StoryCorps, Judy and Harold discuss their first meeting -- when Judy was 3-months-old-- and their second almost 60 years later.

Vernon Dahmer was a successful black farmer and businessman in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, who fought for voting rights in the mid-1960s. He was killed January 10, 1966, after the Ku Klux Klan firebombed his home. At StoryCorps, his widow, Ellie Dahmer, and daughter Bettie Dahmer, remember that night.

At the beginning of the Iraq War, nearly 40,000 members of the United States military were not citizens. Army Private First Class Diego Rincon was one of them. As a child, he had immigrated to the U.S. from Colombia with his family. He he always known he wanted to join the military, and at 19, he enlisted in the Army. Diego was deployed to Iraq in March 2003, at the beginning of the war. Just 11 days in, he was killed by a suicide bomber. Diego received U.S. citizenship on April 10, 2003--the day of his funeral. His parents, George Rincon and Yolanda Reyes, came to StoryCorps to remember him.

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.

One night, in October 2015, Asma Jama went out for dinner with her family at an Applebee’s restaurant in Coon Rapids, Minnesota. Asma, who is Somali American and Muslim, was wearing a hijab, as she always does. While Asma was talking with her cousin in Swahili, a woman named Jodie Bruchard-Risch, who was seated nearby, told her to speak English or go back to her country. When Asma responded to say that she was a U.S. citizen, the woman smashed a beer mug across Asma’s face. She was rushed to the hospital and required 17 stitches in her face, hands and chest. Bruchard-Risch pleaded guilty to felony assault charges and served time in jail for the crime. After the trial, her sister, Dawn Sahr, contacted Asma online and they struck up a correspondence. At StoryCorps, Dawn and Asma met in person for the first time.

Francine Anderson grew up in rural Virginia during the 1950s. It was the Jim Crow South and “Whites Only” signs punctuated the windows of many businesses. Francine came to StoryCorps to talk about one night when she became aware of what those signs meant for her family. Editor’s note: This story contains a quote where a racial slur is used.

StoryCorps gives people the chance to talk to each other about the events that have helped shape who they are. Josh Hanagarne did just that with his nine-year-old son in Salt Lake City, Utah. Josh has an extreme form of Tourette’s syndrome, in which his tics — or involuntary movements and noises — have been so severe, they’ve put him in the hospital. He first started showing symptoms of Tourette’s when he was around the age his son is now. One thing that helps Josh minimize his tics is when he is talking to someone. At StoryCorps, he sat down for this conversation with his son, Max.

During the 1940s, custodians who worked for the New York Public Library often lived inside the buildings they tended. In exchange for cleaning and keeping the building secure at night, the library provided an apartment for the custodian and their families. Ronald Clark’s father, Raymond, was one of those custodians. For three decades he lived with his family on the top floor of the Washington Heights branch on St. Nicholas Avenue in upper Manhattan. Three generations of the Clark family resided in that library until Ronald’s father retired in the late 1970s. After college, Ronald got a position as a professor teaching history at Cape Cod Community College. At StoryCorps, Ronald told his daughter, Jamilah Clark, how living inside the library shaped the man he would become.

This is a story of two women brought together by an unintended consequence of the opioid epidemic. As of late 2017, as the number of deaths skyrocketed, about one out of every 10 organ donors had died of an overdose. When 21-year-old Adam Shay overdosed on heroin in 2014, his pancreas and kidney were donated to a stranger, Karen Goodwin, who was a recovering addict herself. At the time of her transplant, she had been sober for 13 years. Karen reached out to Adam’s mother, Marlene Shay, a year after his death. They sat down for this conversation at StoryCorps in Beachwood, Ohio.

Dr. William Lynn Weaver remembers one Christmas when he was 18 years old in Knoxville, Tennessee.

Anna Freeman and her daughter, Brianna, discuss how bullies have impacted their lives.

Dr. Jenna Lester talks to her mother, Dr. Sharon Brangman, about growing up in a family of black women who have dedicated their lives to medicine.

When Dr. Lora Koenig and Dr. Zoe Courville met in the middle of the Greenland ice sheet while doing climate research, their friendship helped them navigate the challenges of their work and life.

10-year-old Dezmond Floyd talks with his mother, Tanai Benard, about the active shooter drills in his 5th grade classroom.

Brothers Russell and Remmick Wadsworth talk about how they navigate adult life together as people with autism.

Roxanne Simmonds and her husband, Dennis, remember their son, police officer D.J. Simmonds, who died due to injuries he sustained confronting the Boston Marathon bombers.

Kittie Weston-Knauer is the oldest female BMX bicycle racer in the United States. It was her son Max who introduced her to the sport more than 30 years ago.

Cathy Sprigg remembers her son, Army Specialist Robert Joseph Allen, who committed suicide while serving in the military.

10-year-old Leila Ramgren talks with her father, Chad Eisen-Ramgren, about Philando Castile, the cafeteria manager at her school who was killed by a police officer in 2016 during a traffic stop.

De’Marchoe Carpenter and his wife Brandy Carpenter talk about the impact of his wrongful conviction on their relationship.

Percy White III tells his friend Terry Wright about his family’s time as sharecroppers on a Virginia farm.

Alfred Wilson (AW) and Susan Bro (SB)

AW: Heather was very honest with me and told me, ’I don’t type. I’ve never worked in an office. All I’ve done all my life is bartend or waitress.’

SB: So you took a chance.

AW: Yeah. She could communicate with anyone. And, you know, I’m a black male and I might walk out to meet a client and Heather would notice that sometimes they didn’t shake my hand, and that would just infuriate her. And I’m like, ’Where does she get this from?’ Because she grew up in this little small place that’s not that diverse.

SB: She comes from a long line of stubborn people — stubborn and opinionated and not afraid to say so.

That day of the rally, what time did I call you from the hospital?

AW: About two o’clock. I remember my wife told me, ’Oh my God, Alfred. Do you see what happened on the TV?’ And she didn’t know that I was on the phone talking to you. I remember thinking, ’She’s going to tell me that Heather’s hurt.’ But you didn’t tell me that. And then everything was so quiet like somebody had shut the volume control off on the world.

SB: For me, losing my daughter was like, you’ll have a lot of tears one time then you’ll go numb for awhile. And, uh, I’m glad you’re finally able to let some of yours out because you worried me there for awhile.

AW: Yeah. In May, I was going to have two kids graduating at the same time, and all I could think was I wanted her to be there.

SB: Yeah.

AW: But one of the plus sides was when you showed up to the graduation party.

SB: Your family was very welcoming but I kept thinking, ’Heather’s the one that should be here.’

AW: Yeah.

SB: For me, grief is like standing in the shallows of the ocean, knee-deep in the water. Every so often a wave will wash over. And so I allow myself to cry and be really sad while that wave is there. But I know that it will go away, and that’s what gets me through.

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.

Josh Stepakoff talks to his father, Alan, about surviving a shooting at a Jewish day camp when he was six years old.

Barnie Botone tells his friend, Gordon Williams, about his 34 year career working on the railroad.

Maya Altman tells her mom, Robyn Altman, about her memory of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting.

In 1969, Civil Rights leader Edwin Pratt was assassinated in his own home with his wife and daughter, Miriam, present. Miriam Pratt and her godmother Jean Soliz came to StoryCorps to remember the aftermath.

Elizabeth Coffey-Williams tells her niece, Jennifer Coffey, about what it was like to come out as transgender to her family in the early 1970s.

Connie Mehmel speaks with her son, Ian Bennett, about their shared calling for fighting fires.

Denise Baken tells her children about her family's legacy of military service—and the battles faced along the way.

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

Brothers Mark Carles and David Carles talk about how they’ve dealt with Mark’s cancer diagnosis at age 24.

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.

Drew Lanham tells his friend John Lane about his lifelong passion for birds and nature.

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