Steve Otto and Sherelyn Whittum Pedigo

Recorded July 18, 2020 Archived July 18, 2020 39:42 minutes
0:00 / 0:00
Id: mby019919

Description

Steve Otto (59) and his aunt Sherelyn Pedigo (61) talk about their unique family make-up, share memories of past times, reflect on some family tragedies, and talk about their connection to religion.

Subject Log / Time Code

SP talks about SO’s grandma Margie who passed away in 2008, and how their family is kind of unique in that Steve is older than her even though she is his aunt.
SP talks about starting to drive cars and motorcycles at 13 years old, and how SO loved riding around on the motorcycles with SP.
SO talks about the woman he knew as a grandmother and knowing about some of her past hardships.
SO describes finding out from his dad that he had had a near-death experience and having to go down to the hospital, where his father described seeing several deceased family members in the hospital. 

SO talks about considering taking his own life and talking to God in his backyard to give him a sign to live, and that he dedicated himself to the Lord.
SP talks about having to break the news to her mother that her mother had lost another grandchild in a tragic accident.
SP talks about how she will have her ashes buried in a plot where her great great grandmothers headstone is.
SO talks about something that his given him purpose in his life, which is connected to his work in his church and his work in prison ministry.

Participants

  • Steve Otto
  • Sherelyn Whittum Pedigo

Transcript

StoryCorps uses Google Cloud Speech-to-Text and Natural Language API to provide machine-generated transcripts. Transcripts have not been checked for accuracy and may contain errors. Learn more about our FAQs through our Help Center or do not hesitate to get in touch with us if you have any questions.

00:01 Hi, my name is Steve Otto and I'm 59 years old. I live in Moscow, Idaho. I'm going to be interviewing with my aunt Airline. I grew up in Lewiston and currently in Moscow my grandmother Marjorie who were going to be talking about lived in Julietta. And so Cheryl introduce yourself. My name is the Sterling group whittum Pedigo and my age of 61 today's date is July 18th, 2025. And the name of my partner here is my brother's son at the auto I miss you and I talking about

00:54 The unique relationship we have in that my mother is his grandmother and have the role she played in our lives at in the Lewiston Clark Valley where she was born.

01:08 My name is Marjorie Auto whittum Pedigo.

01:15 Thank you for getting the date in there. I forgot the date. It is Saturday, July 18th.

01:27 My mom your grandma Margie died in January 2008 and she did turn 90 years old that month that she had so

01:43 I thought in our family is I'm 61 York 59 and one of my younger I have nieces and nephews were 10 years older than me because we have what I call the first family and the second family. The first family is George Costanza is when Mom was married to Art Auto in 1930. He had four children and one of them was Ray your dad and then she later married my dad and my brother and I so your dad is 20 years older than me, but my brothers and sisters are 20 years older and I

02:32 And that made for you and I don't like cousins.

02:39 Coming up to my mom's house coming to our place when it was your grandma even.

02:47 Yeah, and Juliet came from a house five boys on the list. So it took a lot of energy to round us up and it was a road trip to Juliet. It must be maybe Thirty miles Lincoln Continental and seatbelt in a way would go of my dad would go up and spend a lot of time working on projects at marjorie's house could be Plumbing projects or just fixing things around the place visiting should I give me and my brothers time to run around in juliaetta? I got fond of that. I remember there's a castle in that town the old General Store had the wood floors at Woodcreek when you go in there with would take our pennies and you can actually buy something with pennies.

03:47 What's around a lot and just cuz I'd usually see some deer or go along the river and it was a good out of the town and running around in the Juliet. It was always fun.

04:11 168 when I was there.

04:22 I'll be able to hike up in the mountains. But I also remember before my dad. Here's another parallel that we have is my brother Ray and Ray was 13 when his father died. So Mom was widowed and then when mines dad died, I'm the same age of Ray and Mom had again, but Ray your dad definition is a lot as an elder brother to be kind of a father figure for me to send my older brother was like a father to me the property available at your place for mom to buy a trailer.

05:23 A place for her, and a house built with love. So she was there when you were in high school and it seems auto voice with your mom almost like another mother as well as a grandmother very much. So I'm two generations removed from Mom and Grandma and she's kind of my grandma. She was like a mom to you and honor her car with our conversations that also just to get to know each other better to

06:09 I've got a fond memory in juliaetta. Obviously, you're a little older than me, but you had a motorcycle that you like to drive and you took me on the road back behind giulietta. It was page. Thank goodness. Cuz motorcycle. Yeah and oh, yes, but you kept your adrenaline rush motorcycle.

07:03 Yeah, I did start driving cars and motorcycles when I was 13. My mom steps were in bad shape and she said not to maneuver the clutch on our treat an old car. So she starts having me dry her and I had a growth spurt in 5 foot 6 when I was 12 so I can handle the Pebbles and I love you, too.

07:32 Now Marjorie married art when she was 14 or 15?

07:43 Mine are granddaddy he was 19 and she was 13.

07:50 Mom was Donna Farm in this verse County and

07:59 Eric glad it's Mom's older sister and then what they called while in the 1920s Flappers, I guess and so my grandma mom's mom heard it off for daughter to a Catholic nun and forced to chill out in the nunnery you came back and she said Marjorie.

08:27 All five years older than mom. So she said if you're going to marry or are you better do it now? Because mom's going to send you to the nunnery next so my mom and art and his sister and one other friend drove down to Clarkston Washington out-of-state mom 115 and they were married in Clarkston Washington down there and so they came back to the up on the Prairie. Where do you live? I told my grandma well, I'm married. Now, Mom said, what are you going to do about it? And she said nothing get out of here to move in with her and his sister. Mom was best friends with her sister.

09:20 Show mom had four children while she was a teenager and that's what I call my mom for children. By the time they were raising their family and until her husband your grandpa job with the highway department and that's why they moved.

09:58 Your dad and his brothers.

10:08 And they were married for 25 years and tell your grandfather at 40 died of a heart attack in the doctor's office.

10:18 The 40 years old mom 36 years old and she has since 1488 and that's what she did but three years later she married.

10:30 Ray was kind of left hanging from what?

10:38 13 long to start remarried he didn't exactly like my dad, you know, just stepfather.

10:54 And then he join the National Guard not too long after that.

11:01 Full time. I mean, I think he kind of lied about his age and started eventually working at National Guard. I know he had other jobs before that but

11:10 Cuz he was there 30 years in Lewiston with a National Guard. So the Dynamics of the family were it was pretty hard and I know that the woman that I knew as a grandmother and she did go through a lot of crazy stuff pretty young age. So, you know, I just love her dearly and knowing some of that past and how hard things have been so, you know the way

11:49 She acted it out of here. It was really pretty something amazing. I can remember interviewing her in high school about the depression and I agree. She said, you know, we didn't even know there was one. I mean we weren't they have their chickens and cows and they're far that they're living the same way. They ever they always had so

12:12 I forgot that you had already done oral history interview with her.

12:25 Responsibility

12:39 A ray with the only one of my brothers and sisters

12:44 You're really getting it together. I'm really proud of you.

13:08 . When your dad

13:12 Brother on my brother Jerry appeared to him in the hospital.

13:23 Yeah, he did didn't pass away in 1990, but there was an experience in the hospital reason our family, but my dad called me I might have been a Sunday morning. I can't remember if it is basically the day after the surgery and I I didn't even recognize his voice. I thought it was some kid prank calling me as my dad. My dad was saying you got to come down here. I'm in the hospital. You got to talk to me. I've had something happen.

14:01 And he just sounded so wound up as like is this stray really grosses? He was a smoker and the gun and remove the plaque in his veins in his neck and

14:21 After he was out of the surgery ended his room late at night. He said that his brother Jerry came and visited him. He felt the presence of his father art. Drowned in the river as a Young Man actually trying to save my grandmother and and and also Marcy right? I think out of the river and they both of them, but he ended up drowning. So Jerry was only what 19 maybe when he

14:56 I just married in 10 month old daughter which is right. And so my dad's telling me the story and he said he thought that this visit from his brother that he was going insane. And so he's really worried about his mental health, but then he said he heard Jerry laughed he said that was his lap and he knew then that he was present with him. And then he also felt the presence of his father. Now, he told me he told me that he went next door to the chapel there cuz the Catholic church is right next to St. Joseph, but I'm not sure physically he could have done that but at least he likes the childcare the chapel now that maybe a little percent and basically that's the message that Jerry was trying to give him was just relax and take it easy and rest my dad.

15:56 Like Cheryl and it kind of grew up at a young age and had really spent his life serving in love and other people and the time out for him. So obviously on a medical leave left the National Guard and was just supposed to take it easy and that's that's what he did, you know for the number of years that God gave him between that experience and what he did pass away, but I have no doubt and so I think actually on his on his Tombstone it says two angels came and that would have been Jerry and an art

16:42 Atavism theme song

16:54 And that there was a statue of Jesus Catholic and Jerry walked over to him waiting to statue of Jesus and gray then ask him. What house was it supposed to swear words?

17:26 Gary the angel Apparition or the present Spirit told him to search for his inner sanctuary.

17:39 That's a good word. I hadn't heard that part of the story.

17:44 It was the interior.

17:47 Spiritual

17:49 The following Friday

17:52 I know that must have an Abrupt change.

17:56 Route to finding Christ in my I'd like to hear from you.

18:14 You know, I kind of being the firstborn. I think I followed in my father's first app steps as far as what was shown to me was you know, you work hard. He started working at a young age. I was working full-time by the time I was fourteen actually the grocery store that he used to work at that his friend now owned and so I had my own dental plan my car my checking account and my dad's shop which is half of an apartment on one side and Stan and I live there so I would have been

19:04 About I think my sophomore year I had a I probably I could describe it as the worst day of my life and the best night of my life or I had to answer. You know, I saw some really wrong things inside of me personally and I saw a lot of wrong things in the world and it honestly didn't make any sense to stick it out and be part of this thing, so

19:33 Yeah, I was going to take my life.

19:35 And I was fifteen. I was out in the yard between the two houses. I was raining and late at night and I'm and I'm just like I said if you're there you need to show up because I I'm going to check out if there's really no point in going on and I went into the apartment and turn on my TV and Billy Graham Crusades were on he was given the gospel message. But then I also thought to myself that the gospel message was too simple, but I did receive that and I did commit my heart to the Lord and I was radically transformed to where I became a lover of people.

20:29 Lover of people not Marjorie show that to me too. So I had I had an example but I didn't personally know what that was like and so

20:42 Yeah, I was at the time was dating my my wife Sandra. We've been married for two years now, and I'm glad that I got put on a reset there. If you know, it's interesting you mention that my dad had that experience with the angels and they told him to find it in her Sanctuary my favorite Psalm in the Bible Psalm 51, and there's one word in there that I've been trying to tear apart that I can't really find a definition for and it's worth of the psalmist David. He he's called that your inmost place.

21:20 Panda only way I can describe it for me what it's meant to me personally is like the core of who you are. It's like it's like your blueprint. It's the thing that God work with to build you around and solicit inner Sanctuary thing.

21:39 I know what what you're talking about there. And I think that's what my dad experienced and I did see him have peace, you know, his health wasn't good. But he needed that piece up to the data. He passed away, you know early Friday easily when I was with him. Yes.

22:13 He is now trying to share.

22:23 Create in me a clean heart.

22:30 Resolute

22:33 Expanded on a resolute

22:42 Right. Yeah different versions talk about it in mulch place.

22:53 Marjorie, you know having I can remember there was a hard day where she was in the nursing home and we had just been told that Natalie and her family and once neighbor child and died of carbon monoxide on Lake dworshak started space heater inside the boat and the boat and it took everybody out and I was with Marjorie that day that and Ron was there also your brother and I believe one of my brothers was there to stand or or Scott, but I knew we had to let her know that Natalie her grandchild I had had passed away and what a tragedy this was here. She's already lost two husbands and three sons and she wasn't in the best of health. And so we we did break this news tour and the woman ended up lifting our spirits.

23:51 Mom did she did cheap she ended up praying for us and I just tried to saw this kind of strengthen. It's really not of this world. I mean she was loving on us and helping us grieve just like

24:12 I was

24:15 Tell her that her daughter and grandson and son-in-law had all died in the boat of carbon monoxide poisoning and I was with Mark that newspaper and I was behind her. So she stays it and I held her in my arms.

24:36 Up. I sat down and just tried to steady her and then mostly and I repair my sister Rosalie and we were driving from break the news and you guys had all had done that.

25:03 God bless you. I didn't know that you had.

25:06 Yeah, and she help you.

25:17 That was one of the Legacy she said if you find someone who doesn't have a smile give them what is yours and she had a kid, a twinkle in her eye like she was always up to something.

25:37 That was really cool. It's like it was like a like a kid. Yeah. Yeah.

25:52 ID for daughter became more of the parental figure because I had to make decisions for her and I remember having mom with me one time. We would after-Christmas Union drive around Christmas lights and let's go through McDonald's and Specialties and there was a little doll that came with it.

27:01 Real Rosy Cheeks to I mean like in her eyes.

27:21 Bone up at her funeral and then we're going to throw it away as Mom in her prime. Look up Joey and Rory feek rate for you guys when she lives in your backyard out of the main house and you lived in the clubhouse. So she always wanted to get the garlic grandma do you have

28:21 Little drawings

28:28 I'm just trying to be on the Visions. I got my mind of her mannerisms. She was at hand Tucker. I mean she was when she was always moving now. Look I catch myself doing the same thing, but she needs was animated.

28:53 Rising yeah, cuz the arms are going and she's moving back and forth and very animated. I mean she held your attention that's for sure.

29:05 For an hour and a half

29:15 Real sweet side door where you know, she would hold my face and kiss my cheek and so gentle and sweet and I'm in the perfect grandma.

29:32 But she did tell a story one time when a picture of her was taken at my grandma's house and she was going in the picture. Oh, yes. That's my blood showing through talk with your hands.

29:53 Now sherlyn you and I we've been to the gravesite of great-great-grandpa. We have 10 minutes left. Could you talk about that for a few minutes and I'm going to run to the restroom real quick.

30:10 Is that okay?

30:15 Talk about that bloodline on Marjorie side. That's amazing the history generation since the Frenchman left France for the new world. And that was in 1681 when the Schism though you did not.

30:40 You did by the Catholic during also, so terrible in Paragould grandson American Revolution.

31:11 What's interesting to me is my family when you think about it might my grandfather paid for the last year of the Civil War the 1865 my grandfather Civil War.

31:43 My great-grandmother are buried up on outside the Lewis and Clark Valley and I seen as one of the most interested parties that I get the chance to respond to because I don't know them as my own and I was hoping all this and so I'm so they went across and walk everyone walked they settled in the name of the town in 20 years later and they were Pioneers once again.

32:41 And I got together last summer or summer before an actual cabinet that they built.

33:02 Did he care?

33:06 Odds are not odd that a family thing is they were missionary. So they were always Clancy's churches where they went and they believe you've been getting back to the Bible and not just the religious self depends on your denomination a personal Vibram relationship. So they have told me about him and I am now going to be buried with my actions there.

33:54 My great-great grandmother's headstone is a tall tower Forsyth on it and her and her best friend are both very fair and have their names on one side of that is to blank bite left about four feet tall and I'm heading to have my day up there and have my ashes very queer which are in a heart shape. He's going to do the burial for Wildflower seed packets in it.

34:43 Wildflower back at the foot of my great-great-grandmother. That's the Heritage that you have to pass on your great-great-grandfather in your lifetime if we were timer to 5 minutes.

35:31 Is there something that you feel you have given me purpose in your life. And what was that?

35:39 You mentioned you mentioned a great great grandma and how they had this desire for the church and that you'd mentioned had a real sense of unity is was a big part of what they wanted to see and I never really connected all these dots but that is a lot that drives me. I work at a a thrift store that is comprised of local churches the boards comprised of local churches. We do jobs training for people that have you don't maybe coming out of rehab or prison or have never held a job before I do prison ministry, I go to the county jail. I'm not an ordained pastor, but the biggest thing that fires me up is when the church is can actually get together again beyond their issues of Doctrine and denominations that sometimes keep them divided and actually it's kind of like you can get more done together then individual in separate and so I've had the privilege of seeing that played out in my life. I think Marjorie and my dad all that bloodline

36:39 History is is something that's in in that in most place that core that is just I love it when a pin so I'm that's that's where I'm at.

36:51 The Legacy that you've already through your own Endeavors have striven for you been too stressful in starting now you're working and getting out of your pet.

37:15 And I'm grateful for you and stand in my life at this point then.

37:29 In fact that I would like to close this summer.

37:35 That is my mom always said in the family of God. There are no grandchildren yet to be an individual child of God.

37:47 Are born into this new life and now

37:53 In that your dad was like that with my brother and dad. You and I are now brother and sister in Christ.

38:06 Grateful that we have

38:12 Yeah, where'd you go down about two minutes left? So true. I really hard stuff in her life that she ended on a annoy a note where she was filled with joy was quite obvious. She always took any hardship and said this is just your next opportunity to love on people and she did that until I saw that played out and I saw that my father same thing and you live in a life where you sacrifice and there's not not out of like obligation or duty, but just it just happens from way down deep and somehow in the process you get blessed in the whole process to but doesn't mean the wife's easy, but there can be a richness to it even even in spite of how crazy things can be for sure. So I appreciate you taking the initiative to make this happen and it's it's been a blast.

39:11 Maybe we'll do it again or encourage others to do it again for sure. It's been a good experience.

39:20 I don't know if we can handle that you Smitty my youngest is a talker. We called him motormouth, but Marjorie could outtalk him.

39:37 You bet. I think we're about wrapped up. Alright thumbs up.