Our Mothers Ourselves

Nancy Adler was a renowned health psychologist who documented the powerful role that education, income and self-perceived social status play in a person's health and longevity.

She was that rare person who was highly accomplished in her professional life but never lost touch with what mattered most to her: her family. As a mother, she was such a consistent and steady presence to her two daughters  that they were surprised to discover that she even had a job.

In this episode, Julia Adler-Milstein and Sarah Adler-Milstein talk with Katie about what it was like to be raised by such an unflappable, warm, and generous mother.

Nancy Adler died in January 2024. Here is her New York Times Obituary.

Our Mothers Ourselves is an interview podcast that celebrates extraordinary mothers from all walks of life. Please share the one word that best describes your mother on the Mother Word Cloud.

A companion interview to Season 3 of Lost Women of Science, this episode is about the trailblazing mechanical engineer Yvonne Young "Y.Y." Clark.  Katie talks with Y.Y,'s daughter, Carol Lawson, about what it was like to be the daughter of such a brilliant -- and pragmatic -- woman.

YY has been nicknamed “The First Lady of Engineering,” because of her groundbreaking achievements as a Black female mechanical engineer. Season 3 of Lost Women of Science traces her trajectory, from her unconventional childhood interest in fixing appliances to civil rights breakthroughs in the segregated South; from her trailblazing role at historically Black colleges and universities to her work at NASA. What can YY teach us about what it means to be the first in a scientific field, especially as a Black woman in America?

In this episode, Carol talks about what Y.Y. was like as a mom, Y.Y.'s role model of a marriage, her penmanship standards, and her 1968 Firebird.


Composer:  Andrea Perry

Artist: Traci Mims

Our Mothers Ourselves is a production of Odradek Studios in San Francisco

Our Mothers Ourselves is an interview podcast that celebrates extraordinary mothers from all walks of life. Please share the one word that best describes your mother on the Mother Word Cloud.

Two years ago, to mark Father’s Day, I sat in the closet I’m sitting in now (which you can see only in your mind’s eye), and had an extraordinary conversation with Dr. Talmadge E. King, Jr., a world-renowned lung specialist who is dean of the Medical School at the University of California, San Francisco. Dr. King and I talked about his father, Talmadge King Senior, who was born in 1922 in the segregated south.  I loved our conversation, and it seems fitting to post the interview today, on June 19th, 2022. Mr. King, who died in 2018, would be 100 this year.

Talmadge Senior was so beloved a member of the community in Darien, Georgia that the town recruited him as the first Black police officer when the police force was first integrated.

He instilled in his five children a sense of doing better with each successive generation. He offered a simple metaphor: "If your father builds a wooden house, it's your responsibility to build a brick house." 

Our Mothers Ourselves is an interview podcast that celebrates extraordinary mothers from all walks of life. Please share the one word that best describes your mother on the Mother Word Cloud.

Several years ago, Julie Metz found something in the back of a drawer among her mother's slips and perfumes: a small book filled with handwritten notes to her mother, who was then called Eva, later Eve.

The discovery started Julie on a journey to find out much more about her mother's history.

Her book, "Eva and Eve," tells the story of that journey.  It describes how her mother’s Jewish family escaped Nazi Austria, and also the story of Julie and how through doing research she developed a different understanding of her relationship with her mother.

Julie Metz is also the author of The New York Times bestselling memoir "Perfection," a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Selection. She has written on a wide range of women’s issues for publications including: The New York Times, Salon, Dame, Tablet, Catapult, Glamour, Next Tribe, Slice, and MrBellersneighborhood.com. Her essays have appeared in the anthologies "The Moment" and "The House That Made Me." She is also the winner of a Literary Death Match, the international competitive reading series founded by Adrian Zuniga.

Artwork by Paula Mangin (@PaulaBallah)

Music composed and performed by Andrea Perry

Producers: Claire Trageser and Nora Mathison

Social Media: Claire Trageser

Mother Word Cloud: Please contribute the one word that best describes your mother to the Mother Word Cloud at www.ourmothersourselves.com.

Our Mothers Ourselves is an interview podcast that celebrates extraordinary mothers from all walks of life. Please share the one word that best describes your mother on the Mother Word Cloud.

Mary Trageser is about to celebrate her 100th birthday this April, but she doesn't want any fuss about it. She's had a very adventurous life, growing up as a child of the Great Depression, surviving bombings in London during World War II, then working for the UN in Paris after the war. But she doesn't want any fuss about all that, either.

Mary now has four kids, seven grandchildren, and soon to be four great grandchildren. She's the family matriarch, though her grandkids affectionately call her "G."

In this special episode, producer Claire Trageser interviews her father Charlie about his mom.

Artwork by Paula Mangin (@PaulaBallah)

Music composed and performed by Andrea Perry

Producer: Claire Trageser

Social Media: Claire Trageser

Mother Word Cloud: Please contribute the one word that best describes your mother to the Mother Word Cloud at www.ourmothersourselves.com.

Note: Our sister podcast, Mother Mine, has moved to a separate feed. Click here to listen to it on Apple Podcasts.

Our Mothers Ourselves is an interview podcast that celebrates extraordinary mothers from all walks of life. Please share the one word that best describes your mother on the Mother Word Cloud.

Some women take up crafting or knitting or volunteering in their later years. For Gladys Barry, also known as Gigi, there was a different hobby: Poker.

Gigi was born in Brooklyn and worked as a math teacher in elementary school. She learned to play poker from some of her friends, and realized she had a knack for it.

So she began to play in low stakes tournaments, and kept getting better and better, earning herself the nickname Omaha Gigi.

Once, she went into a casino and sat at a table filled with young guys, and someone came and said, 'let’s move you to an older table.' Omaha Gigi was not having it. She said, 'you just sit and watch me play,' and that casino worker quickly realized his mistake. Gigi wasn't messing around, and stayed at the table.

With her earnings, Gigi helped pay for her daughter's medical school tuition.

On this episode, Katie talks to Gigi's daughter, Dr. Michele Barry, who is the senior associate dean for global health and director of the Center for Innovation in Global Health in the Stanford School of Medicine.

She has traveled the world for studies and conferences, often bringing her mother along with her--whether she wanted to or not.

Our Mothers Ourselves is an interview podcast that celebrates extraordinary mothers from all walks of life. Please share the one word that best describes your mother on the Mother Word Cloud.

Dorothy Nayer was born in Altoona, Pennsylvania and into her twenties, life bumped along. She went to nursing school, got married, and had two daughters.

Then, when her daughters were still young children, Dorothy was in a horrible accident while the family was vacationing on Cape Cod. She was planning to light a hot water heater and it exploded, leaving her with horrible third degree burns.

Dorothy had 37 restorative surgeries, but for the rest of her life she looked dramatically different.

Her youngest daughter, Louise, chronicled her mother's experience and how it affected her own childhood in "Burned: A Memoir," which was an Oprah Great Read and won the Wisconsin Library Association Award.

Louise talks with Katie about her childhood, her mother, and the incredible story of bravery and resilience.

Artwork by Paula Mangin (@PaulaBallah)

Music composed and performed by Andrea Perry

Producer: Claire Trageser

Social Media: Claire Trageser

Mother Word Cloud: Please contribute the one word that best describes your mother to the Mother Word Cloud at www.ourmothersourselves.com.

Note: Our sister podcast, Mother Mine, has moved to a separate feed. Click here to listen to it on Apple Podcasts.

Our Mothers Ourselves is an interview podcast that celebrates extraordinary mothers from all walks of life. Please share the one word that best describes your mother on the Mother Word Cloud.

Joy Liasson was born in Pittsburgh in 1926, a child of the Depression.  She was an aspiring writer who  met her husband when he accidentally burned a hole in one of the two dresses she owned. They went on to have children, including a daughter who became a well known voice in America's political news coverage. That is my guest, Mara Liasson, national political correspondent for NPR. 

Joy didn't work when her children were young, but raised them to care about writing, reading and democracy.  She wrote children's stories, worked for the League of Women's Voters, and worked for the Board of Cooperative Educational Services of Southern Westchester, which provided special education to gifted children.

Artwork by Paula Mangin (@PaulaBallah)

Music composed and performed by Andrea Perry

Producer: Claire Trageser

Social Media: Claire Trageser

Mother Word Cloud: Please contribute the one word that best describes your mother to the Mother Word Cloud at www.ourmothersourselves.com.

Note: Our sister podcast, Mother Mine, has moved to a separate feed. Click here to listen to it on Apple Podcasts. 

Our Mothers Ourselves is an interview podcast that celebrates extraordinary mothers from all walks of life. Please share the one word that best describes your mother on the Mother Word Cloud.

When Ginny Hughes's oldest daughter, Mallory, was born, she  knew something was terribly wrong. Ginny started talking to doctors, they told her she was having "the mommy worry syndrome."  But Ginny was a nurse and knew to trust her instincts.

Eventually Ginny took Mallory to see Dr. Celia Ores, a pediatrician in New York. All Dr. Ores had to do was kiss Mallory and taste her salty skin, and she knew -- Mallory had cystic fibrosis. After a more formal "sweat" test, the diagnosis was confirmed, and Ginny then devoted the rest of her life to caring for Mallory and her sister, getting them the best treatment, teaching other caregivers their care regimens, traveling to New York City every three months for appointments. When Mallory was diagnosed, the life expectancy for cystic fibrosis patients was in the teens or early 20s.  She's now 36.

Ginny Hughes  lives in Greenwich, Connecticut and helps Mallory with her own kids. “My health is so good because of her care," Mallory says of her mom. "She taught me how to take care of myself, she got me this far, and now medications are out that make cystic fibrosis a side dish to my life."

Artwork by Paula Mangin (@PaulaBallah)

Music composed and performed by Andrea Perry

Producer: Claire Trageser

Social Media: Claire Trageser

Mother Word Cloud: Please contribute the one word that best describes your mother to the Mother Word Cloud at www.ourmothersourselves.com.

Note: Our sister podcast, Mother Mine, has moved to a separate feed. Click here to listen to it on Apple Podcasts. 

Our Mothers Ourselves is an interview podcast that celebrates extraordinary mothers from all walks of life. Please share the one word that best describes your mother on the Mother Word Cloud.

I've known Lisa Van Dusen for nearly 40 years, and I've always loved the way Lisa talks about her mother, Barbara: with unalloyed love and respect.

Barbara  is truly the mother "jackpot," as Lisa likes to put it. She is positive, kind, and generous, and gave her three daughters an idyllic childhood in many ways. 

Now 93 and still going strong, she grew rugged and hardy during her Minnesota childhood. She grew up in Duluth, and then as a teenager, started going to boarding school in New York, which required taking three different trains.

But even that journey, which many would see as an intimidating challenge, Barbara made into a positive. During train layovers in Chicgao, she would spend hours in the record department of a department store (yes, such departments were a thing back then)  listening to records. She went on to Smith College, then became an incredibly loving mother to her daughters.

Lisa Van Dusen is an artist and the creator and host of First Person, a civic engagement champion and executive director of the Palo Alto Community Fund.

Artwork by Paula Mangin (@PaulaBallah)

Music composed and performed by Andrea Perry

Producer: Claire Trageser

Social Media: Claire Trageser

Mother Word Cloud: Please contribute the one word that best describes your mother to the Mother Word Cloud at www.ourmothersourselves.com.

Note: Our sister podcast, Mother Mine, has moved to a separate feed. Click here to listen to it on Apple Podcasts. 

Our Mothers Ourselves is an interview podcast that celebrates extraordinary mothers from all walks of life. Please share the one word that best describes your mother on the Mother Word Cloud.