Newberg Graphic Online

Gathering 100 years of stories

Senior living — Daughter of North Dakota homesteader plants roots here

• By: David Sale  
• Published: 3/10/2010 11:26:24 AM

Photo By: David SaleGainer

   “It’s been quite an adventure.”
   So said Geneva Margaret Gainer, a resident of Astor House who turns 100 on March 20, of her eventful life.
   She was born in 1910 on a North Dakota farm situated half a mile from the Canadian border. The farm was homesteaded by her parents after they emigrated from England.
   “In those days the government was trying to get people to move there,” she said. “They would give you a quarter-section — 160 acres — if you could work it for a year and make a go of it farming.”
   She married Deward “Jim” Gainer in 1928 and took up the sometimes difficult role of farmer’s wife. “There were four kids in my family — I was the youngest, so they spoiled me,” she said.
   Among the skills she had to master were those of the pioneer kitchen — without refrigeration, canned moose meat from her husband’s fall hunting was an important winter staple.
   “You couldn’t just go to the store for a loaf of bread — it was 50 miles away,” she said. “So you learned to bake or went without.”
   Her first attempts proved less than successful: having made a batch of “starter” (bread dough left out to catch wild yeast), she made the mistake of storing it in a sealed glass jar.
   “I screwed the lid down tight and late that night there was a loud bang from the kitchen,” she said. “There was dough on the ceiling, on the walls — then Jim stepped on a piece of broken glass and started cussing.”
   Soon, though, Gainer was in the swing of things: butchering and cleaning chickens for market, feeding farm hands and even helping with the wheat harvest by driving a Chevy truck alongside the combine as it poured grain into the truck bin.
   Her homemade bread would later prove very popular at fund-raisers for the United Methodist Church and the P.E.O. women’s scholarship fund. “One man asked if I could bake him a loaf each week,” she said.
   The Gainers had four daughters, three of whom also live in Newberg with their families: Pat Flitcroft, JoAnn Hoy and Jackie Tribbett. (The fourth daughter, Geri Francis, resides in Tigard). Lacking sons, Jim Gainer used the proceeds from a successful harvest to move the family to Oregon in 1947.
   “He felt there was more opportunity for me and my sisters on the West Coast,” Flitcroft said. “Farming was a hard life and he wanted better for us.”
   “I hate to say it, though,” her mother replied. “Jim always did love to farm and it was hard to give up — but there simply wasn’t anything for girls to do, except marry a farmer. College was hundreds of miles off.”
   The Gainers were already acquainted with the Newberg area, as it was home to Geneva’s in-laws. Her husband and his brother Wally soon went into business together, opening the West End Grocery store (located where Nap’s Thriftway is now).
   She also branched out into antiques, opening a shop in a building where the Coffee Cottage annex now resides on Hancock Street, and later moving the store to Aurora. “I had quite a lot of customers from St. Paul and was running out of space,” she said.
   Her husband Jim died 10 years ago after the couple were married for 72 years. The couple boasts nine grandchildren, 15 great-grandchildren and a young great-great-grandchild — almost all of whom plan to be on hand for her birthday celebration next week.
   “We’re getting the family together for a supper here at Astor House,” Tribbett said. “We’re expecting 30 or 40 to come — it’ll be a big day for Mom.”
   As for the secret of her longevity, Gainer credits oatmeal for breakfast every day “and a Tootsie Roll when you need one.”

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