Sat Nov 07 2009
By ANGELA WESTRICK
Steve Santo grew up in Paulding in a neighborhood of 24 boys among eight families where he says any mother could and did exercise discipline over each of them.
Calling themselves the "Bottom Whoppers" club, Santo (one of the "survivors" and record holders for being spanked by all of them), says they still laugh about it at get-togethers, but the experience taught him one of life's little profundities.
"We are in this big world together and we are all one family so in a sense your problems are my problems," says Santo, a retired GM foreman and part-time tutor for Defiance Public Library.
In 1991, when Corrections Center of Northwest Ohio (CCNO), was just a year old, his friend, John Weber, asked him to visit the jail with him. Out of curiosity, Santo agreed.
"He did not explain until I said 'Yes,' that I would be subject to a background check and that it involved being listed as a chaplain."
After giving his word, Santo says it was too late to back out, so he began attending services and visiting one-on-one with offenders.
While sorting religious books cleaning the classroom one day, Santo came across some literacy training books that were stored in a filing cabinet; they were the same books Defiance library used for its literacy program.
"I told this to the manager of the inmate programs, Linda Shambarger, and she asked if I would do a program at the jail."
Shambarger purchased all of the materials from the library. "That was the start of the relationship between the jail and the public library."
Santo taught at the jail for close to four years. Later when the position of branch representative at CCNO opened, he applied and was accepted.
Known as the "library guy" or simply "Hey you," Santo's role is like any library clerk with a few added responsibilities. He is also the reference guide for the law library portion of the jail.
"I show them where to look for the information they need for their cases. I try not to advise them but sometimes they want a voice that is outside the legal system.
"With most of the poorer offenders who must rely on public defenders, there is not much trust with the legal system in the country," he says.
Santo was one of the first three volunteers permitted to move offenders to and from the library from their units. (A job that is usually reserved for movement correction officers.)
He says sometimes the most challenging aspect of relating to offenders is convincing them that he thinks of them as persons and not just as numbers. "The staff at CCNO does an excellent job of treating each person with respect. I simply follow their example."
With regard to his role in jail ministry, Santo's work is strictly one-on-one.
"An offender will ask for certain religious books and during discussions, a dialogue is started and I try to be a good listener," he says. "Sometimes an offender needs to vent his feelings and other times he is looking for support."
Either way Santo encourages them to engage in private prayer and to attend any of the 40 or so religious services offered by the CCNO volunteer chaplain group.
Several years ago, Santo had an experience with an intoxicated suicidal offender that rattled him emotionally. The young man had to be restrained in the intake area of jail because the correction officers could not calm him.
"I spent several hours with him, literally laying on the floor beside him and then sitting with him through his agony. He asked me to visit his family to let them know that he was sorry for messing up his life and theirs."
Santo continued to visit him through his incarceration acting as a sounding board and encouraging him to seek help.
When asked if he has ever been afraid in the jail Santo says, "In all the years I have volunteered here I can honestly say I have met only one person whom I consider to be evil with a capital E.
"Some of them try to put up a front of being bad, but I think that is mostly their sense of self-preservation."
He says when alone and not in a group, most inmates are just like anyone you meet on the street.
"They are our neighbors, who, for whatever reason, have made mistakes in action and judgment."
Santo says he finds it easy developing a professional relationship with the offenders, noting, "Some only want me to be their librarian. Others want someone outside the establishment to listen to them." With his assigned offender workers being pages in the library, they spend 20 hours a week over a four-day period working together. "I get to know some of them quite well and consider them as friends."
The oldest of six boys and an older sister, Santo, who is Hungarian, was allowed a fair amount of freedom growing up; shared chores and schoolwork came first, but after that he was left up to his own devices. He says he observed a lot of small town friendships among the adults in town. "They took care of each other. That kind of wore off on me."
His father worked as a millwright at the foundry and his mother stayed at home until the youngest of the nest was in school. She worked as a cook, then a typesetter for the newspaper and later as a secretary for an attorney.
"My parents encouraged us to be involved at church and at least two school activities each school year," hence his interest in volunteer work says Santo, who is a life Boy Scout.
A few church men of Society of St. Vincent de Paul, whom he admired, that visit the poor and homebound, made a lasting impression on him. Today he is president of Toledo Diocese Central Council of Society of St. V., comprised of 18 northwest Ohio counties.
"We have 400 members in 68 parish conferences and also operate six thrift stores." The conference in Defiance is at St. Mary's Catholic Church where members convene three times a week to try and meet the needs of the local poor. He gave up service on Defiance County Senior Center advisory board because of his time commitment to Society of St. V.
Santo belonged to Ohio High School Athletic Association as a football and track and field official for 20 years. "I still enjoy seeing the men who I worked with on Friday nights. Those friendships are hard to beat."
He was involved with the Elks Lodge for 11 years serving as past exalted ruler and secretary until he left due to illness.
After graduating high school, Santo went to Wayne State University, Detroit, to study medicine, but found after just one year, that he was not really interested in anything biological.
With the draft still in effect, and being prime material, he enlisted in the Air Force in 1961 to take advantage of the education offered. He served for four years as a technician working on heavy ground radar, and then came back to the area where he found good pay working as an electrician and maintenance foreman at GM for 32 years.
Santo met his wife on a blind date for a New Year's dance. He confides, "I enjoyed her company so much that I asked her to marry me six months later."
Their careers are tied together through the church. She is the pastoral associate of administration at St. Mary's. After studying Catholic formation for three years through Mercy College in Toledo, she has begun teaching Catholic Identity in Bowling Green.
The Santos have two married children. Like Santo's parents, he required them to be involved in at least two school activities during the school year.
Both are college graduates. Steve who lives in Dayton, received his degree from University of Maryland while stationed at Bolling Air Force Base, Washington, D.C. His work as a computer systems engineer and contract employee with department of defense takes him all over the world. Yvette graduated from Miami of Ohio, Oxford. She is an elementary teacher in Sharonville (near West Chester) and the wife of Defiance native, Scott Schnegg, a pharmacist.
"All four of them are soccer parents," says Santo, a proud grandfather of five.
The closest thing resembling a hobby Santo does is reading good fiction he says, unless you count his obsession with newspaper crosswords and Suduko. "I'm a crossword junkie. I've been known to work six puzzles a day."
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