Collection is open for research.
Gift of Dorothy Hadley and Hurtis Hadley, November 2014 (Lib. Acc. 28377).
Dorothy Jean Bishop was born in Tillar, Arkansas, in 1942, and moved with her family to Vanport, Oregon, in 1944, so that her father could work in one of Henry Kaiser's wartime shipyards. Hurtis Mixon Hadley was born in Neveda County, Arkansas, in 1942, and his family moved to Vanport in 1945. As children, Dorothy Bishop and Hurtis Mixon Hadley survived the flooding of Vanport, and attended the Portland Public Elementary and High Schools. The couple met while Hurtis was playing music in his band, The Fabulous Majestics, and they were married in 1962.
In 1963, Dorothy Hadley graduated with her cosmetology license from the College of Beauty in the Hollywood neighborhood of Northeast Portland. In 1965, Hurtis Mixon Hadley changed his name to Hurtis Mixon Hadley, Sr. following the birth of his first son, Hurtis Mixon Hadley, Jr. In 1965, Hurtis Mixon Hadley, Sr. became the first Black Oregonian to graduate from Portland Community Colleges' Bakers Apprenticeship program. In 1970, he became the first Black bakery manager in Oregon, as well as the first Black bakery trainer in the state for the Albertsons corporation. In 1977, the Hadleys purchased the Milwaukie Pastry Kitchen, and became the owners of the first Black-owned bakery in the state of Oregon. They closed the bakery in 1985.
Milwaukie Pastry Kitchen photographs and news clippings, Org. Lot 1311, Oregon Historical Society Research Library.
The collection consists of six photographs that show cakes made by the Milwaukie Pastry Kitchen, Hurtis Hadley decorating cakes, and Hadley wearing his Albertsons Bakery uniform after he closed the Pastry Kitchen. In addition to the photographs, there are 21 clippings from newspaper articles about Hurtis Hadley and Dorothy Hadley. Most of the clippings relate to the Pastry Kitchen, but some relate to Hurtis Hadley's decorating mentor, Larry Powell, or to Hadley's work at other bakeries. Materials range from 1977 to 1988.
An oral history interview with Dorothy Hadley and Hurtis Hadley, SR 1406, is also held by the Oregon Historical Society Research Library, and is
Artifacts were separated to OHS museum collections. They are viewable online in the
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