For a Father’s Last Meal, the Main Ingredient Is Love
Juan Reyes grew up in a small town in Mexico and immigrated to the United States in the 1940s. He eventually settled in Texas, where he raised his two daughters, Estela and Candi Reyes.
In Juan’s later years, his struggle with diabetes intensified, and he became more sick. At StoryCorps in El Paso, Estela and Candi remembered caring for him in his final days.
Top Photo: Candi and Estela Reyes at their StoryCorps interview in El Paso, Texas in 2012. By Anaid Reyes for StoryCorps.
Bottom Photo: Juan Reyes in the early 1970s. Courtesy of the Reyes family.
Originally aired June 14th, 2019, on NPR’s Morning Edition.
104-Year-Old WWII Veteran Remembers Fake Tanks, Sound Effects in Top-Secret ‘Ghost Army’
Gilbert Seltzer was an architectural draftsman when the World War II broke out. Soon after he joined the Army, he was told he would be put on a top-secret mission — and an unconventional one at that.
He had been selected to lead a platoon of men in a unit dubbed the “Ghost Army,” made up mostly of artists, creatives and engineers. Their mission? Deception. From inflatable tanks, to phony convoys, to spreading misinformation in bars, they used any possible trick to fool the enemy.
Gil is now 104 years old. At StoryCorps, he sat down with his granddaughter, Sarah, to remember this unusual outfit.
Top photo: A young Gilbert Seltzer in uniform in October, 1942, after graduating from Officer Candidate School in Fort Belvoir, VA. Courtesy Gilbert Seltzer.
Middle photo 1: A dummy 155 mm gun. Photo taken between 1943 and 1944. Courtesy Ghost Army Legacy Project, The George William Curtis Collection.
Middle photo 2: Gilbert Seltzer eating lunch at Pine Camp, Watertown, NY, during the spring of 1941. Courtesy Gilbert Seltzer.
Bottom photo: Sarah Seltzer and her grandfather, Gilbert Seltzer in West Orange, NJ for StoryCorps in January 2019. By Afi Yellow-Duke.
Originally aired May 25, 2019, on NPR’s Weekend Edition Saturday.
‘We Don’t Talk About it Much’: Remembering the 241 U.S. Service Members Lost During the Beirut Bombing of 1983
James Edward Brown is one of the survivors of the Beirut Bombing.
On October 23, 1983, 241 U.S. service members were killed in the terrorist attack on Marine barracks in Beirut during the Lebanese Civil War. It was the largest single-day loss of life for the Marines since World War II, and the deadliest terror attack on American citizens prior to September 11, 2001.
Navy hospital corpsman Brown was 200 yards away from the barracks when the bomb detonated.
He came to StoryCorps in Pensacola with his friend and fellow Beirut veteran, Mike Cline, to remember the day of the attack.
In 2018, on the 35th anniversary of the bombing, Ed Brown walked 24.1 miles per day for a month to remember the 241 service members lost in the bombing.
Top photo: Rescuers probe the wreckage of the U.S. Marine command, Monday, Oct. 24, 1983 in a Beirut building that was destroyed by a terrorist bomb. AP Photo/Zouki.
Middle photo: Mike Cline and James Edward Brown pose at their StoryCorps interview on April 30, 2019 in Pensacola, FL. By Joseph Vincenza/WUWF.
Bottom photo: James Edward Brown is photographed during his 540-mile trek from Jacksonville, FL to Jacksonville, NC in October 2018. On his march, Ed walked 24.1 miles per day to honor the 241 soldiers killed in the bombing. Courtesy James Edward Brown.
Originally aired May 24, 2019, on NPR’s Morning Edition.
How One of the First Legally Married Same-Sex Couples in the US Made it Down the Aisle
On November 18, 2003, in the case of Goodridge v. Department of Public Health, the Massachusetts Supreme Court declared that “…barring an individual from the protections, benefits, and obligations of civil marriage solely because that person would marry a person of the same sex violates the Massachusetts Constitution.” This allowed same-sex couples to be legally married in the state of Massachusetts, the first state in the United States to do so.
David Wilson (above left), one of the plaintiffs in that landmark case, was also one of the first to be married when the law went into effect on May 17th, 2004. In 2010, David first came to StoryCorps to reflect on his difficult path to get to his wedding day.
Nine years later, David and his husband, Robert Compton, came to StoryCorps to reflect on their journey as they approach their 15th wedding anniversary.
Top photo: David Wilson and his husband Robert Compton at their StoryCorps recording in Palm Springs, California in 2019. By Jud Esty-Kendall.
Bottom photo: David Wilson, officiant Reverend Ms. Kim K. Crawford Harvie, and Robert Compton on their wedding day on May 17, 2004 in Boston, Massachusetts. Courtesy of David Wilson.
Originally aired May 17, 2019, on NPR’s Morning Edition.
‘We Were Lucky’: Kids of Holocaust Survivors Learned Their Parents’ Life Philosophy
Abe and Esther Schuster grew up children of Holocaust survivors. Their father, Judel, lost his parents and sister in the Sarny ghetto. Pauline, their mother, lost her entire family — they were murdered during the Nazi occupation of Uman, then part of the Soviet Union.
Pauline and Judel met in Stalingrad and married there in 1945, shortly before they entered a displaced persons camp in Italy. Four years later, they left Europe and arrived by boat in New York to begin a new life.
At StoryCorps, Abe and Esther sat down to remember their parents’ philosophy of life. And as Abe’s high school math teacher would learn, that didn’t always mean following the rules.
Top photo: Pauline and Judel Schuster on their wedding day in Stalingrad, April 1945. Courtesy of Esther and Abe Schuster.
Middle photo: Abe and Esther Schuster for StoryCorps in Birmingham, AL in February 2019. Photo by Jacqueline Van Meter.
Originally aired May 3, 2019, on NPR’s Morning Edition.
The Long Path to Healing after Columbine
April 20, 2019 marks twenty years since tragedy struck Littleton, Colorado.
That morning, two students opened fire at Columbine High School, killing 13 people and themselves.
While then-sophomore Lauren Cartaya escaped the school quickly, her older brother Zach was stuck inside the building with many of his classmates – hiding in an empty classroom.
Two decades later, the Cartaya siblings came to StoryCorps to remember the day that changed both of their lives.
Top photo: The Cartaya family photographed by Life Magazine after the Columbine High School shooting in 1999. Courtesy of Ray Ng.
Bottom photo: Zach Cartaya and Lauren Cartaya at their StoryCorps interview in Littleton, CO in March 2019. By Kevin Oliver for StoryCorps.
Originally aired April 19, 2019, on NPR’s Morning Edition.
Carolyn DeFord
Carolyn DeFord, a Puyallup tribal member, grew up with her mom, Leona Kinsey, in a trailer park in La Grande, Oregon. Twenty years ago, Leona disappeared on her way to her friend’s house, and was never seen again.
She is part of an epidemic of Native American women who have gone missing and never been found.
No one knows exactly how many Native women are missing or murdered, though a report put out by the Urban Indian Health Institute in 2017 cited 5,712 reports of slain or missing Native American women and girls by the National Crime Information Center. Only 116 of those cases were logged into the Department of Justice database for missing persons.
Carolyn came to StoryCorps to remember when she received the phone call that her mother had gone missing.
Leona’s case has never been solved. Since her mother’s disappearance, Carolyn has worked to help the families of other missing and murdered indigenous women.
Top photo: Carolyn DeFord poses with the Missing poster for her mother, Leona Kinsey, who went missing October 1999, at her StoryCorps interview on January 24, 2019 in Renton, WA. By Dupe Oyebolu for StoryCorps.
Middle photo: Carolyn DeFord poses with her mother and daughter in La Grande, OR in their last photograph together before Leona disappeared in 1999. Courtesy Carolyn DeFord.
Bottom photo: Leona Kinsey pictured at her home in La Grande, OR. Courtesy Carolyn DeFord.
Originally aired March 29, 2019, on NPR’s Morning Edition.
Remembering the Assassination of Civil Rights Leader Edwin Pratt
This is a story about an assassination of a Civil Rights leader you might not know about.
Throughout the 1960s, a man named Edwin Pratt was the head of the Seattle Urban League, where he rallied against discrimination in hiring, education, and housing.
On a snowy night in 1969, three men carried out a hit on Pratt in his home, while his wife and five-year-old daughter Miriam were inside.
Miriam recently came to StoryCorps with her godmother Jean Soliz, who was her babysitter and neighbor at the time, to remember the aftermath.
After 50 years, the investigation of Edwin Pratt’s murder remains unsolved.
Top photo: A family photo of Bettye, Miriam, and Edwin Pratt together in 1966. Courtesy Jean Soliz.
Middle photo: Miriam Pratt and Jean Soliz pose at their StoryCorps interview in Renton, WA on January 22, 2019. Photo by Dupe Oyebolu for StoryCorps.
Bottom photo: Jean Soliz and Miriam Pratt make the black power pose together, a few months after Edwin Pratt’s assassination in 1969. Courtesy Jean Soliz.
Originally aired March 22, 2019, on NPR’s Morning Edition.
How a Family Guitar Found its Way Home
When StoryCorps rolled into Laramie, Wyoming, Rodger McDaniel came into the Mobile Booth to remember his father.
His dad, Johnny McDaniel, worked over the years as a miner and milk truck driver, married and divorced Rodger’s mother three times—and he loved music.
Rodger remembers his beautiful singing and his shiny, black guitar.
After getting his dad’s guitar back, he tried to learn how to play without much success. It sat in his closet for years—until he got a guitar player for a son-in-law. They came together for a conversation on the StoryCorps Podcast.
Rodger went on to spend much of his career working in the field of alcohol and drug addiction.
Top photo: Johnny McDaniel, Rodger McDaniel’s father, when he was about 18 years old in Sweetwater, Texas. Photo courtesy of Rodger McDaniel.
Middle photo: Rodger McDaniel at his StoryCorps interview in Laramie, WY. Photo by Rachel Falcone for StoryCorps.
Bottom photo: Rodger McDaniel and his son-in-law Josh Jacobsen in Denver, Colorado, with Johnny’s guitar.
Originally aired February 1, 2019, on NPR’s Morning Edition.
The Man Who Disabled Two Hydrogen Bombs Dropped in North Carolina
On January 24, 1961, a U.S. B-52 bomber was flying over rural North Carolina when fuel started to leak, the plane snapped apart, and the two hydrogen bombs it was carrying fell into a tobacco field. If detonated, these 3.8-megaton weapons would have had an impact 250 times greater than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.
Lieutenant Jack ReVelle, a munitions expert who was 25 at the time, was the man called to the scene. His job was to make sure the bombs didn’t explode.
He came to StoryCorps with his daughter, Karen, to remember those harrowing eight days.
Top photo: Four of the “terrible ten” – from ReVelle’s team – observe the retrieval of the second bomb’s parachute pack from inside a hole they dug over the course of eight days. Photo courtesy of the United States Air Force.
Middle photo: The first hydrogen bomb in January 1961. Photo courtesy of the United States Air Force.
Middle photo: 24-year-old First Lieutenant Jack ReVelle in 1960, the year before the incident in North Carolina. ReVelle worked in Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD). Photo courtesy of the United States Air Force.
Bottom photo: Jack ReVelle and Karen ReVelle at their StoryCorps interview in Santa Ana, CA. Photo by Kevin Oliver for StoryCorps.
Originally aired January 25, 2019, on NPR’s Morning Edition.