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This is Lee Habib, and this is our American stories,

and we tell stories about everything here on this show,

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Our American Stories.com they're some of our favorites this next story comes from a listener

today Joy Neal Kidney a regular contributor and listener on WHO in Des Moines,

tells her story of why the flag means so much to her and her family.

Here's Monty Montgomery with the story.

It's easy for us to forget the meaning of things constantly around us.

If you drive through Washington, D.C. over a summer, seeing the Pentagon, Jefferson Memorial,

Capitol Building, and Washington Monument begins to just seem like a part of everyday life.

They're just there, and the splendor adorning them simply vanishes in the midst of a busy rush hour commute to Arlington where our national heroes are buried. Adorning their graves is another symbol of our great country that we can often forget the importance of to so many people, the American flag.

Joy Neal Kidney's family is a group of some of those people who don't forget its meaning, though.

Here's Joy, author of The Oras Letters, with more on what the flag of our nation means to her and her family.

Thank you. means to her and her family. The American flag was precious to my grandmother,

who often wore a small, sparkly, red, white, and blue flag-shaped pin.

In one of my favorite pictures of her,

she's standing below a flag and grinning.

Back in 1890 when Liora Goff was born in Duthrie County, Iowa,

the new states of Idaho and Wyoming had just been added to the Union, making 44 stars in the flag.

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