Scott Swanson
Of The New Era
Harold Rogers sits in his living room at Wiley Creek Community chatting with a visitor, but it’s clear he’d rather be outdoors.
Rogers celebrated his 100th birthday last Wednesday, Aug. 9, with a party complete with a carriage and horses provided by Wiley Creek’s management.
“We’ve been celebrating for a week,” he said, noting that he still had one more shindig to go – at the Sutherlin Senior Center where he and his wife Martha “spent a lot of time” before moving to Sweet Home in April.
He said he was supposed to go fishing on his birthday, but that fell through at the last minute.
He looks disappointed.
“Harold’s hunted and fished all his life,” Martha said. “That’s why he doesn’t want to be penned up in the city.”
Harold sits in a wheelchair because his feet don’t have much feeling in them any more. But his handshake is strong and he looks ready to go outside any time someone gives the word.
“For my 98th birthday I went out on a fishing boat with friends and we caught several tuna,” he said matter-of-factly. “For my 99th I went out on the same boat and caught a 68-pound halibut.”
He was born Aug. 9, 1906 in Barron County, Wis., where his parents ran a farm. The family moved to Oregon in 1918 after his uncle, a clerk on a mail train, bought land in Yoncalla. After driving across the country in a Model T Ford, Rogers’ parents settled there too.
“That’s been home to me ever since,” he said.
After serving in World War II from 1942 to 1945, in Africa, India and Italy with the Army Air Corps, he returned to Yoncalla and went to work in local sawmills, driving trucks and Cats, and, before he retired, working for the U.S. Forest Service in the Diamond Lake District.
He and Martha, who is 11 years younger, were married in 1945 after they met at a dance. They raised his son Jerry and her two boys, Gale and Carroll Noel.
Carroll now works as a courier for Samaritan Health Services, which is how the Rogerses wound up at Wiley Creek.
Martha said they chose Wiley Creek because of its proximity to the outdoors.
“Outside you can see trees and grass,” she said.
“We didn’t want to be living in town,” Harold said.
The move was clearly a bit unsettling for the Rogerses, who had lived in the same house for 55 years before downsizing to a two-room suite at Wiley Creek. Carroll helped them, renting a truck and taking care of the moving process.
“It was kind of traumatic, actually, packing up the place where’d we’d lived for 55 years,” Martha said. “But he did it.”
“We had to do it,” Harold said. “But it was the biggest job you can think of, moving away and leaving everything.”
They left behind the stuffed game heads that graced their walls, usually about three to a room, Harold said, and the caribou rack that dominated their living room wall.
“They take up a lot of room,” Harold noted.
The outdoors has been a major focus of the Rogerses’ life from the beginning.
“He’d plan a fishing trip all week at work,” said Martha, who hadn’t had a lot of exposure to hunting or fishing until she met Harold. “I’d have the car packed and the boat tied on behind. I’d pick him up after work on Friday and we’d head to the Eastern Oregon lakes to fish, or to go hunting.”
They also liked to dance and did so until a year ago when, Harold said, he was forced to quit. They’re both auxiliary members of the Old Time Fiddlers Association.
“We’ve danced all our lives,” Martha said. “We quit only because we had to.”
They attribute Harold’s health and longevity to his outdoors lifestyle.
“I’ve spent 90 percent of my time outdoors after I retired,” he said. “Being in the outdoors – that’s what’s kept me alive.”
Martha said she believes their diet of wild game has been a big factor.
“I think what contributed mostly to his long life was that he hunted and fished on weekends and we ate wild meats,” Martha said. “We didn’t eat the fatty meats you get at the butcher shop. I think that had a lot to do with it.”
When he retired, in 1972 after 11 years with the Forest Service, the first thing Harold did was head out on a three-week trip Alaska to hunt moose and caribou, something he’d never had time to do before.
He said he and a friend hadn’t had much success finding caribou until they heard from some bush pilots that a herd was moving into their area ahead of an oncoming snow storm.
“My partner sees me getting my gear ready and he says, ‘Where’re you going?’ I said ‘I’m going after caribou,'” Harold said, clearly relishing this story. “He says, ‘Just a minute. I’ll go with you.’ That’s the kind of guy he was. I got a nice caribou and the talk of the lodge was about the old man who got that caribou.”
“He wasn’t old then – he was only 65,” Martha said.
After he got back from Alaska, Harold worked as a mule packer in the Cornucopia Wilderness out of Halfway, near Baker City, for five years, then for a hydroaxe company, clearing land for development for several years. Then he worked on a salmon fishing boat, though he ran into some problems when the operator discovered his age.
“When the guy found out how old he was, he didn’t know if he wanted him working on the boat,” Martha said.
Life’s different now that they’re at Wiley Creek, where Harold spends much of his day inside with Martha, though his fishing pole is conveniently located in a nearby corner.
“I’ve got a couple more fishing poles in the closet, just in case,” he said.
He still plays pool and cards (though not for gambling, Martha says) for “relaxation.”
His nephew, to whom he gave his boat, and his grandson took him fishing a couple of weeks ago, he said.
“We went fishing in Foster Lake and caught a bunch of trout,” Harold said.
His nephew had planned to take him fishing on his birthday, but ended up going moose hunting in Alaska, he said, somewhat resigned.
“I’d like to go steelhead fishing.”