Woody Overton (17:58)
Wayfair Every style, every home. PETERSON no. Garrigos we heard where your father, I guess, was murdered. You never really knew him, did you? Peterson no, I didn't. Gargo you understand after the fact that apparently it was, I guess at the time they didn't know why or who. But he was found dead outside of his business. PETERSON yes. GARAGOS when that happened, it took a number of years before they were able to catch the person that was eventually convicted. Is that right? PETERSON yes. Garrison okay. And that person was sentenced to prison, is that right? Pearson yes. And I've only read it in the paper, in old papers. My mother couldn't speak of it and never spoke of her father. I thought I really didn't have one at times. GARY goes, you've told me that since you have no real memories of your father, you've looked or tried to find pictures of him. PEARSON yes. GARY goes either through yearbooks or other things to try at least explore that portion of your life. PETERSON yes. GARAGOS have you done that? Is that correct? Peterson yes. In my early adulthood, I was able to find an album from where we thought he went to school. And those are the pictures that I have here. Guys. As a result of his murder, one of your brothers, I think, described briefly the fact that your mother had a debilitating disease. Is that right? PETERSON she developed scleroderma, and we were told it was because she didn't release the feelings she had when my father died because she kept it all inside. She had four young children to raise and could not and could not break down. And so her organs broke down, they calcified, basically, until she died a very horrible death over the years of being bedridden here. I guess she you didn't live with her after your father died, is that correct? PETERSON no, she couldn't take care of us. GARY goes part of the reason for that was because I guess your other brother, who hasn't been here, describes this disease as kind of turning into stone. Is that right? PEARSON yes. Garrigo's that the skin falls off or calcifies the organs. Calcify. PETERSON Garriga's Basically. PETERSON Everything you eat becomes calcium, and I don't know, people refer to it as a lost wife in the Bible in the body. So I think it's a very old disease and there's not a lot known about it, but it's very debilitating in a long process here. GUYS As a result of her disease and your father's murder, you were placed in a facility that was called the Nazareth House. PEARSON yes. Here. Guys and were you were you taken there with your brothers? PIERCE yes, it was the old mission school for Indians, and it was in the early well, the late 40s when there were less Indians there and there were just a few and orphans. And we were probably the first children to come in that had actually one parent. And over many years it became more divorced parents and that kind of but when I was there, it was very sheltered. GARY goes yet you and I have talked about it. You have some memories of that place and growing up there, and those are your earliest memories, is that correct? PETERSON yes. GARAGOS Tell me about the I guess they were called the Poor Sisters of Nazareth. PETERSON Nazareth, Garagos and they were the ones, the nuns who would run this orphanage? PETERSON yes, they were Irish and English nuns, and most of them, I learned later, were just poor young girls. They had too many children in Ireland and the parents would put them in a convent. So they were just kids that took care of all the other younger children that could take care of Children and a few teachers. Garrett goes, how did they, I mean, how did they solicit? Peterson they begged from door to door for their food for us. And like a big companies would give them their outdated cereals and their outdated breads. And we had chickens, we collected eggs and we got eggs maybe once a week per treat here, guys. Every time I talk to you about this, well, you would tell me that you would be quarantined periodically for TB and things of that nature. You tell me about the discipline of cleaning toilets and kneeling on the floor. Peterson yes. Garagos and ear flicks en masse. Peterson Here, guys. And every time I've tried to characterize that as being a rather tough existence, you've always told me our needs were met. What do you mean by that? Peterson What I mean is I felt fortunate. I had a roof over my head and three meals a day and was educated. There was no hugging or anything like that. But my mother, somehow she got that through to us. I don't know how, but we knew that God loved us and that just took over everything. GARAGOS is there none there that you have a particularly fond memory of? Peterson yes, Sister Vincent, who I met 25 years later when my son visited the school, the old folks home. She became the principal and she had been my fifth and sixth grade teacher and was actually a nurse. So she took care of me because I had asthma and I had to have special shots and the doctor would come once in a while and she would administer what he left. And I saw her when I went to see what he was up to and she was all crumpled down and I hadn't seen her in 30 years. And she looked at me, she said, how's your asthma, dear Garge It's a memory. Peterson Sweet, blessed woman. And this was in connection with some of the stuff that Scott was doing in connection with Sister Kylie's community service program. Peterson he had Grandparents Day at school, and we didn't have any grandparents until he told me he was going. And I said, you don't have any grandparents. Do you want me to go with you? And he said, no, I adopted this old lady at the old folks home and I've been visiting her for months. And she said she would come to lunch with me as my grandparent. So that's when I wanted to go to the school and see what he was doing because I realized I knew he was in community service, but I didn't know what he was doing. How old were you when you finally Left this? Peterson 13, 8th grade well, you went through the 8th grade and you had to leave and go to high school somewhere. Here it goes. And when you left, did you go at that point, did you go back and live at your mom's house? PIERCE yes. And I got a scholarship to the Catholic Girls High school, which was 20 miles across town on a bus. And I got to live with my mother and took care of her because she was bedridden, and my brothers each, as they came out, two years out apart, took care of her. And when I came home, it was like, you're the girl. Now we have somebody to do everything. We were taught that way at school. We cleaned and we learned to sew and we learned to cook. And I was able to do that and happily because my mother was just a good, kind person. GARGAS how long did your mom live after you moved back home? PEARSON Just until after I graduated from high school, yes, a couple years. PETERSON her last outing was to my high school graduation, which was very painful for her. But no, she died the January following my graduation. Yeah. And I take it that at times your friends would come over to the house. Here's some My friends loved her and they would come and sit on her bed because she was the mom that was at home and had time for all the kids, boys and girls care guys One of those friends was Joanne Farmer. Joanne FARMER, Yes. Her mother worked, so she would come home with me. But the high school you went to was the Rosary High School for Girls. PETERSON Yes, Our lady of the Rosary Gargis. After your mom died, it's my understanding, just from the testimony and the witnesses here, that your family kind of spread out at a certain point. PEARSON yes, my brothers. It was the draft era, and my brother John had already moved out to make room for the for the rest of us to live in the house. My mother was still there and my younger brother got drafted and I got an apartment on my own with a girlfriend and PETERSON and so they were all gone. You went to work on your own. I mean, you were obviously not married. PETERSON I went to work with the airlines PSA in their hangar. The nuns trained me with office skills because they told me I couldn't go to college because I'd have to take care of my mother. And so that just made me want to go to college. So I went to school at nights and I worked days. But because of them I had good skills and got a good job to support myself. GARY goes, well, you heard about the fact that you had become pregnant with your first son Don Pearson Yes. Gary goes, you were 19. You had given him up for adoption, is that right? Pearson Yes, I did. Gary goes, why? Pearson Because I couldn't care for him. I was just existing and I was naive and young and I got with someone that told you they loved you and wanted to marry you, and that's what they meant, and it just wasn't so. And I think I got involved because I wanted a father and a family. I look at that now. But at the time, I was just clueless. I was brought up very naive and not smart. Here, guys. After that, you left psa, is that correct? Because of Don Pearson Yes. My in those days, my boss came and stood by my desk and said, you have to leave. And I said, why? She said, because you're pregnant. And I thought nobody knew. So I was about six months pregnant. And it was just what you didn't if you weren't married, it wasn't acceptable and you couldn't draw unemployment if you were pregnant in those days. So it was a very hard time. But it was my own makings and I got through it. And my son was adopted by a very nice family, and my doctor had people waiting and wanting a child, and he talked to me and counseled me and told me that was the best thing to do. Gargoyles when you left, then you went to work as kind of a temp person at an office? PETERSON Yes, I went to work for Kelly Girls and I took jobs when people were off or work or injured for a while. And I moved around in different companies, learned a lot of different things, and I was always employable here. Guys, you later had a second child who the jury's heard about. Ann Bird. Peterson. Yes. Garrigo. Okay, what happened in that situation? Peterson? You mean, why do I have her? Or Garagos Yeah. Pearson the adoption. GARGO Just tell me about the whole piercing. Well, it was my brother's best friend and I met up with him and I suppose now he was like someone I trusted. And we went together for a long time and we were in love. And he graduated from college with his teaching credentials and couldn't find a job in San Diego, so he moved to Los Angeles and came down every weekend. And then, I know this sounds like a broken record, but he then, then it was every other weekend. And then he came down to tell me that he had fallen in love with another teacher he had just met. And I was going to tell him that I was pregnant, and I didn't because I didn't want to. I knew he would have married me and I didn't want to marry someone that was in love with someone else. GARAGOS so the and also you had that pregnancy and you gave. PEARSON yes, my doctor. GARY goes same doctor, I guess, arrange for her to be adopted. PEARSON yes, it was a private adoption. GARAGUS you've reunited with both of them since, is that correct? PEARSON yes. Her parents, unbeknown to me, she lived very near to me and her parents are her mother can be my sister, eight years older and her father's very much like my husband. It's just an amazing match. She's very sweet, she has hands like me and likes all the same things I like. It's just incredible. But we all get along. Her parents and she and I get together. GARAGUS and along came John, who the jury's heard from, and he was born in 1966, is that correct? PETERSON yes. GARRIGUS and by that time you were more self sufficient? PETERSON yes. Well, not that I think I wanted a family and I was trying to make a family and I finally had my I was a single mom and Gary goes you raised? PETERSON I enjoyed my life. GARAGOS did you raise John at least for the couple years as a single mom? PETERSON yes, until he was four and I met my husband. GARAGOS okay, when you and we heard the story that you enrolled or came back to San Diego and a bit of a trip around the country and then come back with John and you met Lee at community college? PETERSON yes. And did that give you an instant family, so to speak? PETERSON yes, it gave me the family I always wanted. We used to call ourselves the Brady Punch because there were so many of us. GARY Guys, tell me, how long after you married Lee did you have? Scott? PEARSON A year. GARRISON and he had pneumonia just like you when he was born, I guess. PETERSON yes. Gary goes early times? PETERSON yes. Gary goes the Will you tell me a little bit about Scott as growing up? I'll show you. PEARSON well, if you ask me about Scott, I would always say he was a joy from the moment he was born. Gary goes I've got a picture that's marked D9Q1. How old is he there? Peterson under 2. There it goes. At that point, am I understanding that Lee had already started with the Kraton Company?
