This digital story recording was created in conjunction with the Smithsonian's Museum on Main Street program and its Stories from Main Street student documentary initiative, called "Stories: Yes." The project encourages students and their mentors to research and record stories about small-towns and rural neighborhoods, waterways, personal memories, cultural traditions, work histories, as well as thoughts about American democracy. These documentaries are then shared on Smithsonian websites and social media.
During the summer of 2016, Michigan students took part in the Youth Ambassadors program at the Heritage Museum and Cultural Center. The students researched, conducted and transcribed the oral histories of area locals. They created short "movie trailers" for each interview so that museum visitors could quickly glean the content of the longer-format oral histories.
Miriam Pede (00:00): Miriam Jean [inaudible 00:00:03] Pede. My birthdate is July 13th, 1925. Yes, I received my teaching certificate from Albion College is where I attended and graduated from and had a double major. I majored in history and I majored in English. So, I had a total assignment of English there at Greenville, and I was there for a year and then learned of a position here in St. Joseph. And in the fall of 1950, then I came here to St. Joe and began my teaching career here. So I taught here in St. Joe for 27 years and retired in 1977. I met my husband here. We were married in the fall of 1953. There were family reunions, so that I sort of knew the area.
Miriam Pede (00:58): So, then an aunt and uncle who lived in this area, the aunt said, "Why do you want to go to St. Joe? That's just a sleepy little town on the hill?" Well, it was because Benton Harbor was the thriving place, but there was a bus service between St. Joe and Benton Harbor. I still didn't have a car. Or I mentioned that earlier that I never dawned on me that I might own a car. So when I first came and of course I wasn't married when I first came, so I would get the bus and go over to Benton Harbor. And that's where the dress shops and gift shops and everything. JC Penney was there and [inaudible 00:01:38] was there. And well, eventually when the Fair Plain Plaza was built, that took a lot of Benton Harbor merchants out to Fair Plain, which took the heart and soul out of Benton Harbor.
Miriam Pede (01:55): When I was retiring from teaching, I wanted something to do. So I had spouted off on this that I needed something to fill in. Well, as soon as she heard that I had retired, she invited me to her home for a cup of coffee and she presented the opportunity to be in charge of the guides at the Morton House Museum. Well, that meant securing the guides. And there were a number of them and also an annual training session. And then we were open two days a week over there as a museum. And I had to have people there and there had to be two people because if somebody was upstairs taking someone through the museum, there had to be somebody down near the door. So I would have to do that.
Miriam Pede (02:53): Well, I came after this cup of coffee with this friend, I came home to my husband and I said, "I can't turn her down as far as taking this responsibility, after all of my spouting off about the fact that I needed something to do when I retired." Well, I successfully did that for a number of years and enjoyed it. And we weren't overrun with visitors, but it was nice.
Asset ID: 2022.20.05
Find a complete transcript: www.museumonmainstreet.org
