WINNETKA: A Memoir
23 episodes - English - Latest episode: about 5 years ago - ★★★★ - 226 ratingsWINNETKA is a ten-episode memoir created and produced by award-winning actress Jessica Harper, with original music. The podcast features the voices of the Harper family, who share in the telling of their remarkable story.
WINNETKA tells of six Harper kids coming of age in Eisenhower’s post-war America, in a Chicago suburb called Winnetka. The siblings are buffeted by the rages of a father with PTSD, challenged by life in a big family, rocked by social change in the sixties, and ultimately stunned by a long held family secret.
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Episodes
10. Corrections
April 01, 2019 09:00 - 18 minutes - 17.9 MBWhile going through our father’s files after the funeral, Sam finds stunning information about Dad’s ancestry that bounces crazily off of our mother’s. But Dad had altered his legacy. Also, his overt appreciation of my daughters has a healing effect.
Bonus Episode: A Preface To Revelation
March 28, 2019 09:00 - 11 minutes - 11.2 MBDad's presence would be more keenly felt after the revelations that followed his funeral...
9. The Ice Storm
March 25, 2019 09:00 - 32 minutes - 30.6 MBI regret missing Woodstock, and resolve to tune in, turn on and drop out. Soon, all but one of us have left or been expelled from school. Dad melts down, then rebounds and moves his family to New York, marking the end of our childhood.
Bonus Story: Drug Reboot
March 21, 2019 09:00 - 6 minutes - 7.12 MBYou really want to smoke pot? It's strong as f**k these days!
8. Strange Land
March 18, 2019 12:59 - 32 minutes - 30.2 MBJust as Papa Harper dies of alcoholism, Dad gets promoted and moves his reluctant family to the east coast. Billy and Diana and I go to college, seeking sex, drugs and rock ‘n roll, while the younger three are miserable in their new home.Just as Papa Harper dies of alcoholism, Dad gets promoted and moves his reluctant family to the east coast. Billy and Diana and I go to college, seeking sex, drugs and rock ‘n roll, while the younger three are miserable in their new home.
Bonus Story: What We Wore
March 14, 2019 09:00 - 5 minutes - 5.58 MBYou could just hear their golf clubs rattle as their parents realized their daughters were sleeping with hippies.
7. Faith
March 11, 2019 09:00 - 30 minutes - 28.6 MBJFK’s assassination in ‘62 marks a sea change. I lose faith, while big sister Diana finds it, and marches for civil rights. My brothers commit a string of petty crimes, and Billy becomes the first to push back against Dad’s anger.
Bonus Story: Dancing School
March 07, 2019 10:00 - 5 minutes - 5.61 MBI had crossed a threshold, and Mom was on the other side.
6. Survival
March 04, 2019 10:00 - 28 minutes - 27.3 MBBy 1962, my little brothers emulate their father’s work ethic while they fear his unpredictable rages. But the Cuban Missile Crisis makes us aware of greater dangers in the world outside our home.
Bonus Story: Colorado
February 28, 2019 10:00 - 6 minutes - 7.02 MBAs was customary in our family, I opted out of confrontation in favor of the harbor-resentment-for-life plan.
5. The Grandfather Report
February 25, 2019 10:00 - 38 minutes - 35.4 MBMom comes from a long line of ministers, and the goodness persists in the Emery family. The actions of Dad’s father, Papa Harper, also echo those of his forebears, but goodness has nothing to do with it.
5. The Grandfather Report
February 25, 2019 10:00 - 38 minutes - 36.1 MBMom comes from a long line of ministers, and the goodness persists in the Emery family. The actions of Dad’s father, Papa Harper, also echo those of his forebears, but goodness has nothing to do with it.
Bonus Story: Love and Crime
February 21, 2019 10:00 - 6 minutes - 6.94 MB“I got interested in boys then. Not so much for romance as for a Billy surrogate, when he was out raising hell."
4. Winnetka
February 18, 2019 10:00 - 34 minutes - 32.1 MBIn ‘56, we settle in Winnetka. When, in July, Mom gives birth to twin baby boys, Dad’s temper rises like the temperature does. But he keeps us in his thrall with signs of love.
Bonus Story: Housework
February 14, 2019 10:00 - 5 minutes - 6.14 MB“The trouble with being a stay-at-home mom, wasn’t that the work was so hard, but that it was so unvalued.”
3. Wishing
February 11, 2019 10:00 - 33 minutes - 31.1 MBMy twin brother Billy and I are close pals. In spite of our fear of our angry father, we each wish he would shine his love light on us. The arrival of an adorable baby sister does not help our cause.
3. Wishing
February 11, 2019 10:00 - 33 minutes - 30.3 MBMy twin brother Billy and I are close pals. In spite of our fear of our angry father, we each wish he would shine his love light on us. The arrival of an adorable baby sister does not help our cause.
2. Mom and Dad
February 07, 2019 10:00 - 30 minutes - 27.6 MBA Marine (Dad) and a nightclub singer (Mom) are married in 1946. By 1950 they live in a Chicago suburb with three babies. Dad starts his career in advertising, while my mother struggles with being a stay-at-home mom. Dad shows an unexpected angry side, which Mom attributes to PTSD.
2. Mom and Dad
February 07, 2019 10:00 - 30 minutes - 28.4 MBA Marine (Dad) and a nightclub singer (Mom) are married in 1946. By 1950 they live in a Chicago suburb with three babies. Dad starts his career in advertising, while my mother struggles with being a stay-at-home mom. Dad shows an unexpected angry side, which Mom attributes to PTSD.
Bonus Story: The Joke
February 04, 2019 15:00 - 5 minutes - 5.64 MB“Memory is tricky after all. It can morph over time, and events get reimagined.”
1. Introduction
February 04, 2019 10:00 - 14 minutes - 14.3 MBMy family and I attend Dad’s funeral in ’13. As I listen to my siblings’ eulogies that extol his virtues, I note how our memories of childhood differ. But what we’ll all discover some days later is an awful piece of our history that none of us can change, misremember, or deny.
Trailer: The Unexpected
January 28, 2019 10:00 - 3 minutes - 4.09 MBWINNETKA is a ten-episode memoir by actress Jessica Harper. She narrates her story of growing up in the fifties and sixties in a six-kid household in Winnetka, Illinois. You might expect a tale of an idyllic childhood. But when you meet the Harper family, you meet the unexpected…
Introduction to WINNETKA
November 05, 2018 07:00 - 1 minute - 2.34 MBWINNETKA is a ten-episode memoir by actress Jessica Harper. It tells her story of growing up in a six-kid household in Winnetka, Illinois, in Eisenhower’s postwar America. It seems like an idyllic time and place, but the children are dominated by an angry father, rocked by cultural change, and ultimately stunned by a long-held family secret…