NPR

'She Was The Adult I Needed Growing Up': Remembering A Great-Aunt's Enduring Love

Tina Dietz spent her childhood in a troubled home. Her great-aunt Shirley changed her life and provided solace through love and validation.
Tina Dietz and Patrick Conteh at StoryCorps in Bismarck, N.D.

Tina Dietz grew up in North Dakota, in the sleepy, rural town of Mandan. But to her, it felt like a battle zone.

"I thought parents screamed at each other all the time," Dietz, now 38, tells her partner Patrick Conteh, in a 2018 StoryCorps interview. "I didn't know

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