Each week, we work hard to make your Sunday edition of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution special. We know that our dedicated Sunday readers savor the opportunity to spend time on a morning like this with their newspaper, to get caught up on news, understand their world and metro Atlanta a little better and to just enjoy some good stories.
Those are some of the reasons we created “Personal Journeys” a few years ago, a feature that has grown into one of the most popular things we do.
Each week in the Living & Arts section, we offer you a deep, emotional story about someone’s “journey.” Today (and last Sunday), we’re publishing updates from some Personal Journeys stories, so that you can catch up with some of our community’s most remarkable people.
We’re proud of this award-winning work. I often marvel at the skills of our reporters who produce these stories, and at the other members of the staff who support their effort with online videos and photo galleries.
I like to compare the work to watching a great tennis player or dancer. These things, when done well, look easy. But when you know the hard work and time that go into them, well, let’s just say it’s inspiring.
For starters, the folks we write about open themselves up and trust us to tell their stories accurately, fairly and thoroughly. Our reporters spend hours and hours with their subjects and people near them. They make constant checks to verify accuracy of details.
Sometimes the reporters share deeply personal stories about themselves.
And that’s all after the reporter has “pitched” the idea to an editor, who must approve the story and the time needed to work on it. It’s become a badge of honor in the AJC newsroom to have authored a Personal Journey.
A favorite of mine of the past year was by Craig Schneider, who told the story of his efforts to find out about his Uncle Al, a man he never knew, who was killed flying a training mission during World War II. Schneider worked on the story for months, and we talked about it several times as he overcame dead ends in his reporting. Eventually he uncovered a touching personal story, and he found out that his uncle was on the flight because he filled in for another guy. He concluded his story this way:
“I’m pretty sure we have a future, Al and me. I’ll be able to tell stories about him. And I’ll be able to talk about my search for him. Stories about me and my Uncle Al.
“That’s what I’ve been looking for all along.”
Another favorite was the story of AJC health care reporter Misty Williams and her boyfriend. Jason Massad had a terrible fall, and Misty wrote about the challenges of caring for him, and experiencing the country’s health-care system first-hand. They are now engaged, something she shared with readers when she updated their story last week.
Here are some highlights from the stories we’ve revisited the past couple of weeks. You can find more details about these in today’s Living and Arts section.
Remember that at MyAJC.com, we offer access to the archive of Personal Journey stories. You can also suggest one by e-mailing personaljourneys@ajc.com. As you will see, the stories often result in opportunities or changes for the people they feature.
- Jen and Ryan Hidinger were featured in "Savoring the Now" in late 2013. They established a nonprofit to award grants to restaurant and hospitality workers in need. They were also planning to open a restaurant, but Ryan died early this year. Their foundation has given $120,000 to restaurant workers in need.
- Dr. Frank Richards leads The Carter Center's fight against river blindness. In "Eye on the cure," Christopher Quinn told of Richards' decades-long obsession with eliminating the disease by traveling into the back country of Ethiopia.
- Katrell Christie, the owner of Candler Park tea shop, finances her passion of educating lower-caste girls in India by selling tea and holding fund-raising dinners. Reporter Shannon McCaffrey traveled to India to tell her story in "Tiger heart and the power of one," and now will co-author a memoir with Christie.
We hear from readers all the time; they love these stories and are moved by them.
So we plan to keep at it.
In fact, I’m working on a sequel to a Personal Journey I wrote in 2013 called “The replacement soldier.” It told the story of a young soldier sent to the European front in World War II to take the place of the dead and wounded. Most replacements were unprepared for what they faced when thrown into battle, and many were killed within a few days. But Eddie Sessions survived the intense fighting near Metz, France, and was later wounded.
Sessions never revisited the sites where he fought, and he died last March.
His wife decided to take a trip to those places in November. I went with her as she set out to understand more about her husband’s experiences in World War II.
It’s a remarkable story, and I look forward to sharing it with you.
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