Started in 1906
Blossom Fest as we
know it today started at this grange, recounts Esther K. Smith. The
venerable building remains a vital part of the community.
Celebrating
its 100th birthday this year is Pine Grove Grange No.
356, the oldest Grange in Hood River County and unarguably the
mother of today’s Blossom Festival.
It
all started back in early December 1905, when a state Grange
representative visited Pine Grove and gave a lecture at the school
house on the many benefits of having a Grange in the neighborhood.
“It
will supply the want for better social advantages, literary
societies, etc.,” wrote the Pine Grove correspondent in that week’s
Hood River News-Letter. “Its drill in parliamentary practice is
unsurpassed, and its discipline is of the best order. Come and join
with your friends and neighbors in this good work.”
The
talk was successful, for in the next issue the News-Letter reported:
“State Deputy Jacob Vorhees has been working for the past few days
in the Pine Grove district in the interest of the State Grange and
last Thursday evening succeeded in organizing what he says is the
strongest grange he has ever organized during the three years he has
been doing the work of deputy organizer in Oregon.”
The
reporter went on, “The Grange in Oregon has the reputation of doing
great good for the members and there is no doubt but the local
grange of Pine Grove will soon be at the head of the list in the
state. They never do things by halves there, as this strong
organization shows.”
The
grange’s first master, or president, was ambitious enough to try and
get the Oregon State Grange to hold its next annual meeting there.
The News reported April 7, 1906, “A.I. Mason, the hieu tyee of the
Pine Grove Grange, telephoned in as we go to press the following
extract from a letter received in response to inquiries by him to
Deputy Vorhees regarding the state grange for 1907:
“‘Well, now, infant in the grange field, there doesn’t appear to be
anything you think is beyond your reach. It seems to me you are
throwing away your nursing bottle and putting on grown airs rather
early, but if you really think that the average “web-foot” can get
ripe Hood River strawberries on the fourth Tuesday in May, 1907, in
sufficient quantities to satisfy reasonable appetites I will help
you to get the Oregon State Grange next year on you for 1907.’”
It
worked: According to a story in the April 28, 1939, Hood River News,
Mason, as grange master, attended the annual state grange meeting in
May 1906, and his “dynamic personality was responsible for bringing
Hood River valley the annual session of the Oregon State Grange in
May, 1907 …”
During the first two years of its existence, meetings were held in
homes, the schoolhouse and the fruit warehouse, according to the
same article. The grange’s “commodious two-story hall” was built at
about the same time as Mt. Hood Railroad’s Van Horn station, it
said.
Allen Moore, who has been a member since 1948 and served as grange
master in 1955, said that the hall was built in the latter part of
1907 and wasn’t finished until 1908 — and that it actually started
out on the north side of Van Horn Road.
“Shortly after World War II, Diamond Fruit decided they wanted to
build a packing house on that spot so they picked up the grange and
moved it across the street,” he said.
The
grange occupied the upper floor, and the area’s first general store
— Johnson and Hale — took up most of the lower floor, Moore said.
Life-long Pine Grove resident Dale Scobee, who died in 2004, told
the Hood River News in 2002, “Practically everyone belonged to the
grange. All social activities revolved around it.
Scobee had been a member since 1927, when he was 14, and when he
died he had racked up 76 years of grange membership.
The
National Grange is the nation’s oldest national agricultural
organization, according to its Web site, with “137 years of service
to rural America.” The site also says that the organization was one
of the first formal groups to admit women to membership on the basis
of equality with men. Young people, too.
“Anybody could join the grange when you turned 14 as long as you
were involved in agriculture,” Scobee said in 2002.
From
the beginning, the grange members concerned themselves not only with
important matters such as equity in taxation, protecting and
improving their district schools and highway legislation, but also
the lighter side of life such as dances and card parties.
“They used to put on a dance every Saturday night,” Scobee said in
the 2002 interview. “There would be pretty good crowds because that
was all the entertainment we had in those days.”
Grange projects over the years have included the renovation and
maintenance of the Pine Grove Butte Cemetery and several of the
now-established Blossom Festival traditions such as the community
meal, Blossom Court and blossom tour.
“The
grange started the Blossom Fest as we know it today,” said Moore,
whose mother, Mary Moore, is credited with spearheading the grange’s
first of 30 annual smorgasbord dinners in 1953. “When they started,
the Pine Grove Grange was the only one doing it.”
The
first dinner, which was done as a fund-raiser and wasn’t actually
connected to a Blossom Day theme — that came about four years later
— attracted about 75 people. By 1960, there were 10 times that many.
As interest grew, the grange marked out a “Blossom Route” which led
visitors through the most scenic drives each year.
By
the mid-1960s the grange women were serving 2,000 or more people the
smorgasbord dinner of Swedish meatballs, turkey, ham, barrels of
salad and homemade dessert on “Blossom Sunday.” By 1972, there were
11 separate organizations participating in Blossom Day.
In
1981, the number of dinners served was 1,500, and the task was
beginning to wear on the original cooking crew.
“By
the middle ‘80s they had worn out the old members and it was hard to
get new volunteers, so the old members just quit,” Moore said.
The
meal was renamed the “Blossom Buffet” and moved to the high school
in 1984. By this time, Blossom Sunday had grown to be a weekend
festival.
Pine
Grove Grange didn’t drop out of the Blossom scene altogether,
though; its members held a flea market and an antique show and sale
for six or eight years, Moore said.
Cindy Poole, the current Grange Master, said that for some years
there was also a train stop at Pine Grove on Blossom Day, where the
grange women would serve pie and coffee, until “all those wonderful
pie bakers stopped making pies.”
Centennial Party
Pine Grove Grange Celebrated it's 100 year
Anniversary Saturday, April 29th. All grangers and the entire community
were welcomed to attend this memorable event!
