During the 1940s, custodians who worked for the New York Public Library often lived inside the buildings they tended. In exchange for cleaning and keeping the building secure at night, the library provided an apartment for the custodian and their families. Ronald Clark’s father, Raymond, was one of those custodians. For three decades he lived with his family on the top floor of the Washington Heights branch on St. Nicholas Avenue in upper Manhattan. Three generations of the Clark family resided in that library until Ronald’s father retired in the late 1970s. After college, Ronald got a position as a professor teaching history at Cape Cod Community College. At StoryCorps, Ronald told his daughter, Jamilah Clark, how living inside the library shaped the man he would become.

Storm Reyes grew up in migrant farm worker camps outside Tacoma, Washington during the early 1960s. Most of the laborers were, like Storm, Native Americans. They were paid less than one dollar per hour for their work in berry patches and apple orchards throughout the state.

Storm started working as a full-time laborer herself when she was 8 years old. Her family lived without electricity or running water. But at StoryCorps she told her son, Jeremy Hagquist, about the day something arrived in camp that changed the course of her life.

Abigail Jean and her father, Rich Jean, thank their local librarian, Hasina Islam, for encouraging Abigail’s love of reading.