Mom

by Dave Isay

  I hope you’ll join us as we work to weave StoryCorps into the fabric of American life and into the lives of all Americans. Onward!

  —Dave Isay, October 2009

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  This book owes its existence to the remarkable curatorial eye, deft editing skills, and disciplined project management of Lizzie Jacobs, StoryCorps’s editor. Lizzie was assisted with diligence by Isaac Kestenbaum. Thanks also to this book’s readers, all of them mothers, who weighed in on numerous versions of the manuscript on tight deadlines: Kathrina Proscia; Eve Claxton; my wife, Jennifer Gonnerman; and my mom, Jane Isay. Gratitude to Darren Reidy, the Tape Transcription Center, Jennifer Kotter, Emma Tsui, and Jordan Sayle.

  Thanks to Scott Moyers for his steadfast support and wise counsel. Thanks also to our remarkable, ever-vigilant agent, David Black, whose loyalty, attention, and heart never cease to amaze. At Penguin Press thanks to Lindsay Whalen, Liz Calamari, Tracy Locke, Stephen Morrison, and our editor and publisher, Ann Godoff, the best in the business.

  Thanks to all of our supporters, with special thanks to our lead funders: Patricia DeStacy Harrison; Gara LaMarche; Larry Kaplen; Joe and Carol Reich for our Memory Loss Project; and Stan Shuman, Deborah Leff, and the StoryCorps Board. Thanks also to Peggy Bulger and the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress. Thanks to the inimitable Ellen McDonnell, Ellen Weiss, Dana Davis Rehm, and everyone else at NPR who has a hand in our weekly broadcasts on Morning Edition.

  Most of all, thanks to the entire tireless StoryCorps team—the most brilliant and committed group of people anyone could ever hope to work with.

  FAVORITE STORYCORPS QUESTIONS

  • What was the happiest moment of your life? The saddest?

  • Who was the most important person in your life? Can you tell me about him or her?

  • Who has been the kindest to you in your life?

  • What are the most important lessons you’ve learned in life?

  • What is your earliest memory?

  • Are there any words of wisdom you’d like to pass along?

  • What are you proudest of in your life?

  • How has your life been different from what you’d im agined?

  • How would you like to be remembered?

  • Do you have any regrets?

  • What does your future hold?

  • Is there anything that you’ve never told me but want to tell me now?

  • Is there something about me that you’ve always wanted to know but have never asked?

  CONTINUE THE CONVERSATION

  Visit www.storycorps.org to• learn how to interview someone important to you;

  • listen to more stories and share them with others;

  • subscribe to our podcast;

  • find out where our booths are located and how to bring StoryCorps to your community;

  • support StoryCorps;

  • read about the National Day of Listening.

  One hundred percent of the royalties from this book will be donated to StoryCorps, a not-for-profit organization.

  Lead funding for StoryCorps comes from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

  Other major 2009 funders include: the Atlantic Philanthropies, anonymous, the Kaplen Foundation, Joe and Carol Reich, the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, and NPR.

  Additional funders include the Ford Foundation, the Annenberg Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation, the Marc Haas Foundation, the Charina Endowment Fund, Bloomberg L.P., the Fetzer Institute, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Open Society Institute, and the BayTree Fund.

  Legal services are generously donated by Latham & Watkins and Holland & Knight.

  For a complete and current list of all of our supporters, please visit our Web site: www.storycorps.org.

  National Partners:

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Dave Isay is the founder of StoryCorps and the recipient of numerous broadcasting honors, including five Peabody Awards and a MacArthur “genius” fellowship. He is the author/editor of four books that grew out of his public radio documentary work, including the first StoryCorps book, Listening Is an Act of Love, a New York Times bestseller.