A New Heart And A New Path: Transplant Recipient Shares Lifelong Dream With Her Mom
When Gianna Paniagua was just a baby, she was diagnosed with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy — a heart defect that led her to severe heart failure. Gianna was 14 months old when she received her first heart transplant.
Gianna with her mother, Lourdes, at the hospital after her first transplant in October 1992.
Courtesy of Gianna Paniagua.
Even with a new heart, Gianna spent most of her life in and out of hospitals. Those experiences shaped her childhood, and she remembers being surrounded by doctors for most of her life.
Gianna as a child playing doctor with her dolls. Courtesy of Gianna Paniagua.
During these countless appointments and medical procedures, Gianna was able to lean on her mom, Lourdes Matamoros. Lourdes has been by Gianna’s side for decades — including when she received her second heart transplant in 2021.
Gianna (right) in the hospital with her mom after receiving her pacemaker in 2018. Courtesy of Lourdes Matamoros.
A year after receiving a new heart, Gianna came to StoryCorps to speak with her mom about her plans for the future.
Top Photo: Lourdes Matamoros and Gianna Paniagua at their StoryCorps interview in Nashville, Tennessee on March 17, 2022. Taken for StoryCorps.
Originally aired April 8, 2022, on NPR’s Morning Edition.
Her Aunt Saw Her for Who She Truly Was
In 2018, at the age of 63, Dee Westenhauser came out as a transgender woman. But growing up in El Paso, Texas in the 1950s, she remembers having a hard time fitting in.
At StoryCorps, Dee sat down with her friend, Martha Gonzalez, to remember the one person who made her feel comfortable in her own skin.
Photo: Dee Westenhauser and Martha Gonzalez at StoryCorps in El Paso, TX. By Nicolas Cadena for StoryCorps.
Originally aired April 5, 2019, on NPR’s Morning Edition. It was rebroadcast on March 11, 2022 on the same program.
‘A Package Deal’: Two Brothers Face Mortality Together
David Carles and his little brother, Mark Carles, were best friends.
David and Mark Carles at a family wedding in 2002. Courtesy of Mark Carles.
Growing up on Staten Island, the two did everything together. But in 2018, at the age of 24, Mark’s life was upended by a rare form of liver cancer called fibrolamellar hepatocellular carcinoma.
David Carles’ Tinder profile. Courtesy of David Carles.
A year after that diagnosis, the brothers sat down at StoryCorps in New York City to talk about the ways Mark’s illness had changed their lives.
Mark died on February 24th, 2022. He was 27. David came back to StoryCorps to remember him, just a few days after his death.
Top photo: Mark Carles and David Carles at their StoryCorps interview in New York City on November 6th, 2019. By Mia Warren for StoryCorps.
Listen to David and Mark’s original 2019 conversation:
Originally aired November 22nd, 2019, on NPR’s Morning Edition. An edited version was rebroadcast on March 4, 2022 on the same program.
From Civil War To Civil Rights: Remembering A “Fearless” Midwife And Matriarch
Mary Stepp Burnette Hayden was born into enslavement in Black Mountain, North Carolina. She was 7 years old when she was freed.
Mary Stepp Burnette Hayden, about 1942, with her granddaughter, Mary Othella Burnette, and two of Hayden’s great-grandchildren. Courtesy of Mary O. Burnette.
Mary would go on to become a midwife in the Appalachian town, a practice she learned from her mother, who was sold to a plantation in Black Mountain at the age of 13 to treat sick or injured enslaved people.
Mary died at the age of 98, at the dawn of the civil rights era.
In her lifetime, she delivered several hundred babies… including her own grandchildren.
One of them, Mary Othella Burnette, came to StoryCorps with her daughter, Debora Hamilton Palmer, to honor the family matriarch.
Mary Othella Burnette and Debora Hamilton Palmer in 2015, Michigan. Courtesy of Mary O. Burnette.
Top Photo: Mary Othella Burnette and Debora Hamilton Palmer at their StoryCorps interview in Saint Clair Shores, MI, and Sparks, NV, on Feb. 6, 2022. By StoryCorps.
Originally aired February 18, 2022 on NPR’s Morning Edition.
From Dire Straits To Friends For Life: How Living On The Road Brought Them Together
In August of 2014, Kat Valentino was living in a run-down motel with her family. They eventually decided to move into a van — a blue, 1991 Ford Econoline.
She’d soon find a community of others living out of their vehicles, mostly those impacted by the Great Recession who had foregone traditional housing, seeking a different way of life.
Along the way she met Vincent Mosemann, who became her friend and later her roommate.
Kat and Vincent came to StoryCorps to talk about what brought them together.
Top Photo: Vincent Mosemann and Kat Valentino at their StoryCorps interview in Oregon on January 26, 2019. By Dupe Oyebolu for StoryCorps.
Originally aired February 4, 2022 on NPR’s Morning Edition.
He Survived The Holocaust Because Of A Stranger’s Kindness
In 1941, Philip Lazowski and his family were among thousands of Jewish people sent to the Zhetel Ghetto in what was then Poland.
One day, the Lazowski family caught wind that the Nazis were killing Jewish people in the ghetto and they decided to go into hiding. But Philip, just 11 years old, was caught alone by a German soldier after helping his parents and siblings take shelter in a hideout they’d built in their apartment.
Rounded up into the Zhetel marketplace, he saw the soldiers sending children and the elderly to their deaths, but noticed they seemed to be sparing families with adults who had jobs deemed valuable by the Nazis, like doctors, tailors or cobblers.
When he was 91 years old, Rabbi Philip Lazowski came to StoryCorps with his wife, Ruth, 86, to remember a quick decision that saved his life.
Rabbi Philip and Ruth Lazowski on their wedding day, in 1955. Credit: courtesy of the Lazowski family.
Top Photo: Rabbi Philip Lazowski and Ruth Lazowski. Credit: courtesy of the Lazowski family.
Originally aired January 21st, 2022 on NPR’s Morning Edition.
“The Black Vote Matters:” How An Army Veteran Inspired A Teenage Martin Luther King, Jr.
Warning, the following story includes a description of racial violence.
In 1945, World War II US Army veteran Maceo Snipes, returned home to Taylor County, Georgia. He voted in the county’s primary in July of 1946, and the next day, he was murdered by a white mob.
The news of Snipes’ lynching — and the killing of four other African Americans — reached a teenage Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., then studying at Morehouse College. These murders inspired King to write a letter to the Atlanta Journal Constitution.
A teenage Dr. King’s letter to the editor of the Atlanta Journal Constitution. MLK was a Morehouse College student inspired to speak out following Maceo Snipes’ lynching. Courtesy of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Raynita Snipes Johnson, Maceo Snipes’ great niece, only recently learned of her uncle’s story when she campaigned for Black voting rights in the 2016 presidential election.
Raynita Snipes Johnson at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. The church was a destination for Martin Luther King, Jr. following a KKK bombing that killed four Black children in 1963. Photo courtesy of Raynita Snipes Johnson.
She sat down with her friend, Gene Robinson, to talk about her uncle’s contribution to the Civil Rights Movement.
Gene Robinson and Raynita Snipes Johnson at their StoryCorps Virtual recording on August 29, 2020.
Find out more about the effort to honor Maceo Snipes’ life at The Maceo Snipes 1946 Project.
Top Photo: United States Army veteran Maceo Snipes. He served in World War II, and was murdered shortly after returning home from service. Photo courtesy of Raynita Snipes Johnson.
This story was recorded in collaboration with the PBS series FRONTLINE as part of Un(re)solved— a major initiative documenting the federal effort to investigate more than 150 cold case murders dating back to the civil rights era. More such stories can be explored in an interactive documentary at Un(re)solved.
Originally aired January 14th, 2022 on NPR’s Morning Edition.
“Kids Bring Happiness”: A Couple Finds Purpose Opening Their Home To Children Affected By The Opioid Crisis
The opioid crisis reached a grim milestone during the heaviest months of the COVID-19 pandemic. More than 100,000 people died from overdoses, a record number that has touched families and communities across the country.
Historically, one of the hardest hit areas has been Blue Creek, Ohio, where Jesus and Suzanne Valle lived and raised their family for two decades. It eventually hit close to home, when Suzanne’s brother and sister-in-law started struggling with drug addiction.
When it became clear to the Valles that their four nieces and nephews would go into the foster care system, they stepped in and filed for custody. They eventually adopted the kids, as well as two more children from the larger community.
Jesus and Suzanne with their adopted children in Art Van Atta Park, OH, July of 2021. (Courtesy of the Valle family)
In 2017, they came to StoryCorps to reflect on their decision to take in more kids, and how they’ve found purpose and happiness in their bustling household.
Top Photo: Jesus and Suzanne Valle at their StoryCorps interview in Blue Creek, OH, on August 13, 2017. By Jacqueline Van Meter for StoryCorps.
Originally aired December 17, 2021, on NPR’s Morning Edition.
The Santa Protest — How One Man’s Firing Became A Fight For AIDS Awareness
In 1989, at the height of the AIDS crisis, Mark Woodley was caring for his dying best friend, while coping with his own HIV status. Although an architect by training, he saw an ad in the Village Voice looking for Macy’s Santas. He applied and got the job. He loved the experience of bringing joy to children, and Macy’s invited him back the following holiday season.
By 1990, he had started taking the drug AZT, which was the primary treatment for AIDS. When he went in for his physical, he was honest about his medication regimen — AZT in combination with Prozac — and he knew he made a mistake.
Mark waited for Macy’s to respond, but no news came about the job. He was called into an HR meeting and told that they wouldn’t be rehiring him back as Santa. He filed a lawsuit against the department store.
Around the same, Jon Winkleman, a young gay man, was taking his first steps into activism with the coalition group ACT UP — along with their subsidiary group Action Tours, which carried out covert direct actions. He read a blurb in the back of the New York Times about Mark’s lawsuit, and he and the group decided to do something about it.
The Action Tours protest at the Macy’s 34th St Store in NYC on Nov 29, 1991. Photo by Meryl Levin.
After the protest, Mark never returned to Macy’s as Santa, but in the following years, he donned the red suit again at different pediatric AIDS clinics and organizations.
After losing his job as Macy’s Santa, Mark Woodley welcomed the chance to play the part for children with H.I.V. at the State University Health Science Center in Brooklyn. Dec. 16th 1994, by Michelle V. Agins, for the NY Times.
Mark eventually moved to Amsterdam, where he opened a small import business. Jon stayed in New York until 2015, when moved back home to Rhode Island. He is still an activist. They connected virtually for StoryCorps almost 30 years to the day of the protest.
Mark Woodley in Amsterdam, and Jon Winkleman in Rhode Island, after their StoryCorps recording on November 22nd, 2021. For StoryCorps.
Top Photo: The Action Tours action at the Macy’s 34th St Store in NYC on Nov 29, 1991. Photo by Meryl Levin.
Originally aired December 10, 2021 on NPR’s Morning Edition.
After Facing A Difficult Coming Out, One Couple Changed A Mother’s Heart
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.
Since then, Leslye and Mary moved across the country to Berkeley, California so Leslye could pursue a seminary degree. She recently graduated.
Top Photo: Leslye Huff and Mary Ostendorf.
Originally aired November 27, 2016, on NPR’s Weekend Edition. It was rebroadcast on November 26, 2021 on NPR’s Morning Edition.