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Tuesday, October 26, 2021
The Observer & Baker City Herald
DOROTHY
FLESHMAN
DORY’S DIARY
New entries in
Dory’s Diary
D
ear Diary,
On this last Tuesday of October,
Oct. 26, 2021, to be exact, I
open my book on fresh, clean, and wel-
coming pages awaiting my thoughts to go
airborne.
For how long, no one knows, but they
say that one should be careful for what is
wished for ... since you just might get it.
Well, in September I joined the mid-
dle-aged folks by having another birthday
— my 95th it was.
I especially noted it as a turning of
empty pages in that I could no longer do
all the things that I could do so easily
when I was a young 81, but I thought it
had to be accepted. Now I’m not so sure
even though it has been a full year since I
hung up my pen on these pages as a reg-
ular, having written in this diary for 12
years, beginning in The Observer in 2009,
then joining the Baker City Herald as well
in mid-2012.
It was my latest recent birthday that
jogged me back into action. My kids in
Nevada ran an advertisement in the news-
paper requesting birthday cards to be sent
my way. Well, it worked. Cards started
flowing in.
A surprise came with them. Out of
some 212-plus cards were notes reminding
me that some 80 of them were from my
Diary readers. And, some of them were
still asking for more of these secret entries
that no one is supposed to see. I guess it
was all Daphne’s fault in leaving the diary
lying about where everyone could take a
peek. Now they also knew that I had had a
birthday and told me so.
Have you ever faced a stack of over
200 cards to answer and thank for their
kindness along with expressing apprecia-
tion for gifts, flowers, surprise party, and
weed-pulling detail? I assure you, I enter
it on these diary pages with trembling
hands as electronics aid me in so doing for
a once-in-a-lifetime gift.
No wonder I have had a life so assur-
edly filled that the word written on paper
needs to reach out to the public to inform,
to assure, to personalize, and for those
clipping out the piece of paper held in
one’s hands on a regular basis and stored
in scrapbooks for later discovery by gen-
erations in years to come — a written his-
tory of the now, of what once was, and a
peek into the changing future.
I hold my diary in my hands, its pages
as yet unspoiled. Should I begin again as
the number requested?
It has recently been exciting to share
the news with my longtime Herald editor
Jayson Jacoby that my 80 readers had
written especially to let me know they
were guilty of peeking into my diary
over the years ever since Observer editor
Ted Kramer in 2009 had given me the
job. Then there were editors Glenn Rab-
inowitz, Jeff Petersen, Andrew Cutler and
Jayson Jacoby, Cherise Kaechele, Phil
Wright, and then back again to Andrew
Cutler in 2021 (I hope I haven’t missed
anyone), and so Dory’s Diary lingered on.
Now I tremble (from excitement, not
age???) as ink spreads across the page to
again appear in the Home & Living Sec-
tion B of The Observer and the Baker City
Herald in the Nov. 2 issue.
It looks like as long as circumstances
are favorable, I will be writing my Diary
on the first Tuesday of every month,
starting where I ended a year ago.
Remember. You, the Reader, asked for
it. It’s your fault that I’m back again from
retirement. I love to retire and then un-re-
tire. It gives me the option of changes that
now occur in contrast from those of the
long ago.
See you on Nov. 2 ... I hope.
ANN
BLOOM
IT’S ALL GOOD
The benefits of
family meals
W
hen was the last time you ate a
meal with your family? The kind
where everyone sits down at the
table at the same time, to eat together? It’s
really hard these days, what with different
work schedules (kids and adults) after-
school sports and extracurricular activi-
ties and meetings. Yet, there are many rea-
sons why researchers say people who eat
See, Bloom/Page B2
Gretchen McKay/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette-TNS
Travis Harhai’s deep-dish apple crumble pie.
All-American
dessert
Classic deep-dish apple pie with crispy
crumb topping
words,” the Mount Pleasant resi-
dent says about his win, and the
$100 prize that came with it.
PITTSBURGH — Travis
It’s all the more surprising
Harhai is pretty proud of his
when you consider Harhai only
deep-dish apple pie. Piled high
recently took up baking, and
with fall’s favorite fruit under a that he didn’t decide to enter
sugary blanket of crispy crumb the Aug. 21 competition until
topping, it’s exactly what you
the night before, after learning
picture when you think of the
about it from his girlfriend,
classic all-American dessert — Ashlee.
sweet and fruity, with a wonder-
“Then I woke up at 5 a.m.
fully flaky crust you can’t wait
that day and started peeling
to dig into.
apples,” he says. The finished
The fact that the recipe has
product went straight from
been handed down over the
the oven to the judges’ table
generations makes it even more “because everyone likes warm
special. His maternal grandma, apple pie.”
Angeline Schultz of Acme,
Harhai baked his first pie
Pennsylvania, was the first to
four years ago, for a friend’s
make it, and it has been served
dinner party, after lying about
at countless family gatherings
knowing how. It didn’t go well,
over the years, says Harhai, 30, he says. “So I had to call my
who works for People’s National mom and got grandma’s recipe.”
Gas repairing gas lines.
It took a little trial and error
Still, he didn’t think it could to perfect: He learned the hard
be a winner of the 2021 Blue
way that it’s much better to use
Ribbon Apple Pie Contest at the butter than margarine in the
Westmoreland County Fair.
topping. He also now knows
“I couldn’t even put it into
that if you use too much water
By GRETCHEN McKAY
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
in the dough, you’ll have a hard
time getting pretty crimped
edges.
He estimates he’s made at
least 100 pies for family and
friends. “It took off pretty
quick when it started tasting
like grandma’s,” he says with a
laugh.
Though his mother, Ginny,
says his pie is better than his
grandmother’s, Harhai was ner-
vous that day at the fairgrounds.
He jokes that he paced about
three miles during the judging
process. (Disclosure: I was
among the three judges sam-
pling the 15 entries.) In the end,
he won everyone over with his
tasty mix of Granny Smith and
McIntosh apples, and simple
crumb topping made with
sugar, butter and flour.
The crumb top, he says, it
what makes his apple pie spe-
cial. “If you can get that right,
everything else tastes good
afterwards.”
As Westmoreland Coun-
ty’s winner, Harhai is eligible to
take his pie on the road to com-
pete against other blue-ribbon
hometown bakers at the 106th
Pennsylvania Farm Show. It
runs Jan. 8-15 at the Farm Show
Complex & Expo Center in
Harrisburg.
Here’s his winning recipe.
BLUE RIBBON
APPLE CRUMB
PIE
For crust
1 1/4 cups flour
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup plus 1 tablespoon
vegetable shortening, chilled
1/4 cup cold water
For filling
10 Granny Smith and/
or McIntosh apples
See, Pie/Page B2
The rich, varied history of the Rogers Building
GINNY
MAMMEN
OUT AND ABOUT
T
he history of 1200 block
on the north side of
Adams Avenue in down-
town La Grande has a story
that is bittersweet. The fact
that it was at one time pos-
sibly the most imposing blocks
of downtown La Grande is a
wonderful thing to share. The
loss of over half of these mag-
nificent buildings is a sad thing
to realize.
According to the National
Register of Historic Places,
the current building at 1200-
1205 Adams was erected in
1892, replacing three one-
story buildings. However, The
Observer reported in 1915
that “24 years ago (1891) the
plate glass for the front of
the Rogers building arrived
and being put into place.”
The historic given name of
this building is the Rogers
Building, although the name
shown in the city directories of
Larry Fry Collections
The Rogers Building in downtown
La Grande has been home to a
variety of businesses, as well as
apartments, during its more than
120 years.
1893 and 1903 was the Rogers
Block Building at the northeast
corner of Adams and Depot.
The name of the builder
is not given. Since the 1893
City Directory had only one
person in La Grande named
Rogers, it is likely that he was
the builder. This was Levi
Rogers, who was listed as a
fruit grower.
Over the years this two-
story building covering nearly
half the block has housed
numerous occupants, both
business and residential. The
earliest occupants, according
See, Mammen/Page B3