Longtime Friends Reconnect in a Homeless Shelter
Longtime friends Barbara Parham and Jeanne Satterfield first met during the 90’s — two native New Yorkers who had moved to Boston and found a sense of community and camaraderie in the city’s LGBTQ scene.
The pair ran in the same social circle for a number of years, but gradually drifted apart. Barbara had moved back in with her mother and was caring for her during a serious illness. And Jeanne was working full-time as a drug and alcohol counselor.
They’d see each other on occasion — sometimes at the doctor’s office, once at a memorial service for a mutual friend — but for the most part they were leading separate lives.
It wasn’t until 2017, when Barbara and Jeanne really reconnected; this time, at a place neither one of them expected to be: the Pine Street Inn homeless shelter.
Top Photo: Jeanne Satterfield (left) and Barbara Parham (right) in front of the Pine Street Inn homeless shelter in Boston, Massachusetts. By Jud Esty-Kendall for StoryCorps.
Originally aired December 21, 2018, on NPR’s Morning Edition.
Jenn Stanley and Peter Stanley
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.
Photo: Peter and Jenn in 1994, courtesy of Peter Stanley.
Marcela Gaviria and Dempsey Springfield
Marcela Gaviria survived a childhood cancer that nearly took her leg.
She’s spent the last 30 years dealing with complications from that illness, and in that time she has stuck with the same orthopedic doctor, Dempsey Springfield.
Marcela and Dr. Springfield have lost count of just how many surgeries they’ve been through together, but at StoryCorps they remember the very first one.
Originally aired October 19, 2012, on NPR’s Morning Edition.
Top: Marcela dances with Dr. Springfield at her wedding in June 2012. Photo courtesy of Lauren DeCicca.
Sue Hyde and Jesse McGleughlin
Sue Hyde tells her daughter Jesse McGleughlin about her difficult childhood. For Sue, the hardest part was feeling alienated from her family because she had feelings for other girls, and when she was 19, she told her mother who then asked her, “What did we do wrong?”
Originally aired February 23, 2007, on NPR’s Morning Edition.
Bill Fahey and Walter Fahey
Retired police officer Walter Fahey talks with his son Bill about his long career in law enforcement. He attributes his longevity to having “a good reputation on the street, because (he) never looked down on people.” During his years on the job, he was shot, hit by cars, and thrown off a porch, but he always had a loving wife and family to come home to, which allowed him to go back to work the next day.
Originally aired February 2, 2007, on NPR’s Morning Edition.