Achieving such renown required a big heart—and a lot of cash. When Adler died in 1993 at age 98, the eccentric magazine distributor and lifelong bachelor shocked many of Baker City's 10,000 residents by bequeathing his $20 million fortune to the town and its surrounding county. Adler, who had no known living relatives at his death, "felt like Baker County and the city of Baker in particular were his family," says Norman Kolb, 66, a longtime friend and trustee of the foundation Adler set up to dispense the largesse. Says Norquist: "He loved that community very, very much."
The feeling is mutual, thanks in part to the "Leo grants" that are pumping new life into the struggling logging town. The foundation pays, out about $1.5 million a year, mostly for college scholarships for local teens and adults. All graduates of the two area high schools are eligible. This year the trust paid $943,000 to 443 students attending a variety of institutions—from beauty academies to Yale Medical School—in sums ranging from $600 to $6,600.
"It's amazing for the county that most anyone who wants help going to school is receiving some funding," marvels Tim Smith, 27, a soil conservation specialist who plans to become a teacher; he will collect $2,100 this year for a master's degree in education from Eastern Oregon University. (His wife, Molly, got about $8,000, the entire cost of her recent master's degree in childhood development from Boise State.) "Without the help," says Smith, "I wouldn't be able to go to school."
Community groups vie for the remaining grants. This year's winners include the Little League, which got $8,000 for a new ball-field sprinkler system; the library, which got $20,000 to expand its collection; and a 28-acre public sports complex now being built, which got $75,000 to help meet construction costs.
The son of a German Jewish immigrant jeweler and his wife, Adler began peddling the Saturday Evening Post in Baker City's dusty streets at age 9. By 20, he had built a booming magazine distribution business, which he sold in 1986. He lived for more than 90 years in the crumbling four-bedroom Italianate house that he inherited from his parents. Adler, so frugal that he never wired the second floor for electricity, eventually lived in just four ground-floor rooms. He stored several decades' accumulation of retired lawn mowers and worn-out brooms in the front parlor. "He was generous to everybody but himself," says former fire chief Bob Young, 72.
But Adler was no recluse. A member of the Elks Club who had a taste for whiskey, he dined out every night and "was always buying a round of drinks for people," says museum volunteer Chary Mires, 58. "Everybody knew Leo." A baseball fanatic, Adler attended more than 20 consecutive World Series and regaled hometown buddies with tales of famous friends such as theater producer Florenz Ziegfeld. "One time he called from Palm Springs, tipsy, partying with Roy Rogers and Dale Evans," Young recalls. He also had a longtime girlfriend, Zella Smurthwaite, who worked for his company; she died in 1990 at age 88.
Adler, says Mires, stayed "very sharp" until the end. No less sharp is his foundation's farsighted support of many projects to which townsfolk also contribute—volunteers maintain the ball field, for instance. Says Norquist, "He brings the community together."
Samantha Miller
Tina Kelley in Baker City
- Contributors:
- Tina Kelley.
Saved by the Bell Reunion
The hookups, the meltdowns, the memoires
The case reveals what was really going on what they think of each other now!
