Dave Isay

Mary Stepp Burnette Hayden was born into enslavement in Black Mountain, North Carolina. She was 7 years old when she was freed. She stayed in Black Mountain and became a midwife, delivering several hundred babies including her own grandchildren. Her granddaughter, Mary Othella Burnette, came to StoryCorps with her daughter, Debora Hamilton Palmer, to honor the family matriarch. [Overview Courtesy of Storycorps]

Six-year-old Jerry Morrison is obsessed with outer space — so of course, his favorite person to talk to is his uncle Joey Jefferson, a Mission Operations Engineer at NASA. They talk all about favorite planets, how much more there is to learn, and Joey’s hopes for Jerry’s future.

Stefan Lynch was raised by gay parents in the early eighties. He was cared for and loved by a group of adults, largely gay men, who he called his “aunties.” Stefan remembers the succession of AIDS-related illnesses in his family, including the death of his father in ‘91. Even in the face of terrible sickness and loss, his aunties showed him how to survive and care for one another.

The difficulties faced by same-sex couples have created far too many stories of unrequited love. Glenda Elliott's story is one of them: Glenda came to StoryCorps to remember Lauree, the woman she fell in love with in small-town Georgia, at a time when it was difficult to imagine an acceptable path apart from marrying a man and starting a family. Though she and Lauree planned for a late-in-life reunion, fate interfered. In "A Certain Kind of Love," Glenda remembers the power of their bond.

Jackie Miller adopted her son, Scott, in the early 1970s. In 2008, Scott brought his mom to StoryCorps to ask her about that decision.

The first-ever animated feature from StoryCorps, Listening Is an Act of Love, presents six stories from 10 years of StoryCorps, where everyday people sit down together to ask life’s important questions and share stories from their lives. Framing these intimate conversations is an interview between StoryCorps founder Dave Isay and his nine-year-old nephew, Benji.

The first-ever animated feature from StoryCorps, Listening Is an Act of Love, presents six stories from 10 years of StoryCorps, where everyday people sit down together to ask life’s important questions and share stories from their lives. Framing these intimate conversations is an interview between StoryCorps founder Dave Isay and his nine-year-old nephew, Benji.

Bryan Wilmoth is the oldest of eight children who grew up in a very strict household. Eventually, all the siblings became estranged from their parents. At StoryCorps, Bryan told his brother mike about the day their father discovered that Bryan was gay.