Favorite stories from 2015
The story of Marvin Rockwell — the patriarch of Monteverde, Costa Rica’s Quaker community — who was one of the original settlers who traveled from Alabama to avoid the draft. http://alj.am/1wQQzRl
Ester Debevec is one of the few remaining Holocaust survivors from Sarajevo. She, like many others, refused to leave during the Siege of Sarajevo and lived to see Bosnia’s modern Jewish baby boom. http://alj.am/1IE0e4v
The story of Peace Village — a rural Missouri church built to be a home for America’s forgotten Korean military brides. http://alj.am/1BtEumj
The Alaskan island that draws hundreds of pilgrims each year from around the world. http://goo.gl/vGvKQR
St. Louis begins to host refugees from Syria and Iraq, and the city’s Bosnian population rallies to support them. http://goo.gl/V87eqc
St. Louis’ forgotten role in the Manhattan Project, and the painful legacy that lives on today. Photo by Alexey Furman. http://alj.am/1DIkgaQ
The Chicago beekeeping firm that’s keeping former prisoners out of prison at rates astronomically higher than the national average. http://goo.gl/S0SxMg
Remembering the Japanese invasion of Alaska during World War Two, and how the American internment of the indigenous Unangax in the Aleutian Islands damaged a culture in ways still felt today. http://alj.am/3zh3
The Nebraska ranchers leading the fight to save one of North America’s largest unfragmented grasslands. http://alj.am/a7zt
The community building a home out of a vacated Cold War-era military base at the very edge of the United States. http://alj.am/qun5
How the fracking boom transformed western Wisconsin. http://alj.am/qhrd
The civic awakening of St. Louis’ Bosnians, and the first Bosnian-American to run for office in the city. https://goo.gl/mgNKyk