On this episode of Our American Stories, when a group of refugees from Bosnia arrived at her Iowa church, Joy Neal Kidney watched them step carefully into a world that felt nothing like the one they had escaped. One family in particular carried the quiet weariness of people shaped by war, and Joy’s family decided to give them something familiar to hold onto: a Thanksgiving dinner. Joy joins us to tell the story of one remarkable Thanksgiving.

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On this episode of Our American Stories, before he ever wore his trademark hat on the sidelines, Tom Landry was a young man trying to build a future during the hard years of the Depression. He joined the University of Texas football team, flew combat missions in World War Two, and returned home to begin a professional career that brought both recognition and pressure.

But even as the wins piled up, he felt a quiet emptiness he could not ignore. When a friend invited him to a Bible study, he went reluctantly—and left with a sense of clarity he had been searching for since childhood. Here’s Tom Landry’s story of faith and football in his own words.

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On this episode of Our American Stories, Tony Sarg never set out to become the quiet genius behind one of America’s most cherished traditions, yet his imagination is the reason Thanksgiving morning feels like magic. Long before millions tuned in to watch the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, Sarg was busy turning puppetry, engineering, and whimsy into something completely new. His early window displays for Macy’s were so inventive that the store asked him to help shape their holiday parade, and that’s where his upside-down puppets took flight. What we now think of as giant parade balloons began as sketches from a playful mind that loved solving problems and delighting crowds.

Here to tell the story is Deborah Sorensen, Curator of Exhibitions at the Nantucket Historical Association, where their exhibition Tony Sarg: Genius at Play is the first comprehensive exhibition exploring the life of Tony Sarg.

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On this episode of Our American Stories, Heidi Viars spent her days juggling kids and household chaos, convinced she didn’t have room for much else. Her neighbor, Tom, kept mostly to himself after retiring from the Chicago police force, and the two lived side by side without knowing each other for years. Things shifted the day Heidi slowed down enough to notice he was slipping. One small act of kindness led to another until a simple check-in became something deeper. Their friendship grew in quiet moments, shared rides, and the kind of trust that forms when two people step into each other’s lives at just the right time.

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On this episode of Our American Stories, most Americans grew up thinking Thanksgiving had always fallen on the same Thursday in November. In Lincoln’s time, it was set on the last Thursday of November, and that habit settled in for generations. Then Franklin D. Roosevelt shifted the holiday earlier, hoping that a longer shopping season would lift a struggling Depression-era economy. The change split the country, with some governors following FDR and others keeping the old date, and for a few years, families marked Thanksgiving on different Thursdays depending on where they lived.

Melanie Kirkpatrick walks us through why FDR and Thanksgiving became linked to a calendar fight and how Congress finally fixed the holiday on the fourth Thursday of November.

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On this episode of Our American Stories, when Donna’s daughter Cassie was diagnosed with chronic paranoid schizophrenia, everyday life became harder to manage. Donna realized their family needed a different way to live, something that gave Cassie steady structure and gave others with special needs a place to belong. So they opened a resale shop and built it around employment opportunities for special needs adults. What began as a way to help Cassie soon became a workplace where people who often struggle to find special needs employment could feel supported, capable, and needed.

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On this episode of Our American Stories, Eisenhower’s name sits on the interstate signs, but Charles Zug wanted to understand whether he truly deserved that place in history. His work traces the creation of the Federal Highway Act and shows how the idea of national road building developed long before Eisenhower reached the White House. Zug explains the moment when the plan finally gained momentum and why the change reshaped daily life across the country. Zug is an Assistant Professor of Constitutional Democracy and Political Science at the University of Missouri, a Jack Miller Center fellow, and the author of Dwight D. Eisenhower and the Federal Highway Act.

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On this episode of Our American Stories, in the early years of the war, the United States was preparing its soldiers and building an army that was not yet ready for a direct fight in Europe. Britain, still recovering from being pushed off the continent, knew it could not return to France without risking another disaster. Both nations wanted to stop Germany, yet neither could strike at its center. The opening they needed appeared in North Africa, a place that allowed them to enter the conflict on land while learning how to operate as partners.

Years later, the late historian Stephen Ambrose would trace how this moment taught both nations what cooperation in wartime actually looked like.

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On this episode of Our American Stories, Tom Waits has a voice and style that feel carved out of another world, yet many people first meet his work through other artists. One of his earliest songs, “I Hope That I Don’t Fall in Love with You,” is a perfect example. It drifted from Waits’ small club beginnings to the radio through bands like 10,000 Maniacs, much like “Downtown Train,” “Ol’ 55,” and other Waits originals that became hits in someone else’s hands.

In this Story of a Song, we explore how a simple tune about a missed chance at love became one of Waits’ most quietly enduring pieces.

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