Pie Baker Grandmother Extraordinaire

photos & story by Linds Sanders

“I don’t make them any different

than other people. God has just blessed me with a great gift,” said Donna Mallery. Without exact measurements or a recipe book, she stirred the flour into a large mixing bowl positioned on her hip as she might have carried all five of her sons when they were babies. There was no need to watch the dough take form. She knew by feeling the resistance on her wooden mixing spoon the crust was ready.

“Some people roll out dough on a flour board, but when you use oil and flour like this, it works really well to roll it out on wax paper,” said Donna, modest to share her baking hints. After the crust was set in the pan she poured in the filling, small apples from her neighbor’s tree sticky with butter, cinnamon and a cocktail of spices. Donna removes the pie from the oven and keeps her apron on to deliver the pie. Her neighbor is Plain’s Mayor, Michael Brinson, who met her at the door with his wife, Shirley, to accept the pie with open arms.

Donna, 85, has a 60-year history of pie making. Her pies are legendary in her hometown of Plains, Mont. selling at fundraisers for anywhere from $50 to $100. Now she gives them away.

Donna learned to make cherry pie, pumpkin pies, mince meat pies, and her famous apple pies when she married during her freshman year at St. Paul Bible Institution in St. Paul, Minnesota.

“I went to school to be a pastor’s wife and I found one,” said Donna. She met her future husband during her night job as a desk attendant in the dormitories. On a dull night she decided to decorate the lobby’s Christmas tree with soapsuds. It was World War II and the country was learning about sacrifice, down to the tree ornaments.

Robert “Bob” Mallery came in that night and admired the temporary beauty of the tree. They talked all night. Bob had been praying for a woman whom he could share his life and love of God. After less than a year of courting, Bob knew Donna was that woman. They married on Bob’s birthday, September 22nd, 1945.

After several years of ministry work, traveling all around Montana and surrounding states, they received a letter from Starla Mallery, their daughter-in-law. It urged them to move to Plains where a Christian and Missionary Alliance  church was beckoned for by five families in the community.

In 1970, the Plains Alliance Church started small, holding Sunday service in the living rooms of the attending families until 1975 when they had raised enough funds to construct their own building. Donna taught Sunday school and played piano for church services, weddings and funerals. During her church work she managed to raise five sons who live in Montana, Nevada and Washington.

Her sons have given her more than 50 grandchildren ranging from eight years old to 40.  Her oldest great-granddaughter is 19 years old. “I could be a great-great-grandmother!” She became a great-grandmother to three more children in fall 2010.

“It’s no fun coming home to an empty house,” said Donna. Bob passed away 20 years ago in October to cancer. They were married for 40 years. Donna now lived alone in a one-bedroom apartment. Picture frames with children smiling lined up on top of her piano, her refrigerator, and on every shelf of her desk, next to her computer.

After Bob’s death, Donna feared their ministry work would be forgotten, so she wrote a book for her grandchildren in 1997 called “Out on a Limb”. Her family all helped type the hundred-page book. Once written the district office ordered 100 copies to be printed and delivered to all pastors in the district. The book was a reference to show how churches conducted ministry work in the past and how the Plains Alliance Church was created.

In the mornings, Donna wrote numerous letters to pen pals around the community and states. When she realized her grandchildren were not responding she went online. Donna has a Facebook with 157 friends.

“We all have gifts and talents and this is the gift the Lord has given me,” Donna said as she puts in the habitual increments of oil and flour for another piecrust. She was baking a pie for the church luncheon that occupies the church’s gym every second Sunday. Donna plans to write another book soon, but right now she has a pie that needed a filling.