At 83 years old, Claudia Leash still unlocks the door to her floral shop before most of downtown The Dalles has finished its first cup of coffee. She arrives early each morning with her dog Wasabi, who walks around the shop like a tiny shopkeeper on duty. Next door, her son starts a pot of coffee in his mortgage office and brings her a cup. They sit together while her thoughts are organized, and the historic building slowly wakes around them.
Claudia has been a florist for nearly half a century. She has watched generations of moments unfolding. She has witnessed many first dates turn into weddings, then baby showers, anniversaries, and eventually funerals. She has celebrated generations of joy and grief, still remembering families by thier name and milestones. “I’ve done flowers when they were born,” she says with a smile. “Now I’m doing their wedding flowers.”
Her story as a florist began after her divorce. Claudia found herself a single mother raising two young children in a time when women were still fighting for financial independence. She needed work, so she walked confidently into Sigman’s Flowers and asked the owner, Bud Sigman, for a job. She started cleaning flowers but she knew she had an eye for design. One day, Bud asked her to make a large casket spray. Claudia had never made one before. He casually told her he was heading across the street for lunch and hoped it would be finished by the time he returned.
“Thank God he was gone for three hours,” she laughs, recalling the challenge.
It took her two hours to complete the arrangement. Today, after decades of experience, she can create the same piece in about twenty minutes.
Three years later, Bud announced he planned to sell the business. “I thought, ‘Oh my God, I have to buy it. I need a job,” Claudia recalled.
She bought Sigman’s Flowers from Bud in 1980. Claudia decided to keep the name because the shop already had a long history and reputation in the community under Bud. She felt he had worked hard to establish the name, so instead of changing it, she left it as a way to honor the history and the name people in the community already knew and trusted.
After she took over, Bud worked for her for a few months. Eventually, he gave her his ordering sheet from a full year of business and said, “It’s yours.”
Claudia remembers trying to refinance her home loan and being told by a banker, “You make a good living, but it’s too bad you’re not married.” It was not an easy era for women building businesses. Sadly, in Claudia’s generation, this rhetoric was her reality.
“This shop has been good to me,” she says with a smile.
It helped her raise her children, send them to college, build a home, and eventually purchase the building associated with Sigman’s Flowers, including the original shop structure, which had been part of the historic complex, as well as the adjacent building.
Claudia’s family’s roots in The Dalles run deep. She lost her mother at age six and was raised on a farm nearby. Later, after her divorce, she stayed on that same family farm to raise her own children. Together, she and her children boarded horses to help make ends meet. Her daughter, Tawny, became a rodeo queen, and her son, Michael, rode jumping horses.
She hasn’t ever remarried. She felt she couldn’t balance a relationship while raising her children and running her business. “I worked hard. Made a lot of sacrifices. But I’ve had a good life.”
Claudia has breathed life into her little floral shop. The store overflows with candles, chocolates, gifts, and flowers. Beyond her shop, she has a love for the building and its layered history. Dating back to the late 1800s, it was known as the Oaks Hotel, a Safeway store, and even a brothel.
Now, even in her eighties, Claudia is actively rebuilding the historic structure. Original windows are being uncovered, brick walls are being revived, upstairs apartments are being rebuilt, and even a historic staircase is being restored. With the help of grants and her family, she is carefully bringing the old building back to life.
“I’ve always loved this building,” she said.
She remains friends with many of her former employees, who still return to visit her decades later. “One became a lawyer in California. Another retired as a naval captain. One employee stayed for 25 years,” Claudia jokes, “so long, we could finish each other’s sentences. A business is only as good as everybody that’s in it,” she said. “I’ve learned something from every one of them.”
People in the community talk about Claudia with tenderness. She is a part of the emotional fabric of the town. And she speaks fondly of the community. There was the man who bought his wife a pink poinsettia every Christmas. After he died, Claudia continued delivering one to his widow every year until the wife passed away. Or another longtime customer who had serviced her floral coolers every holiday for decades, after his death, she quietly continued sending flowers to his wife, too.
“You start these relationships,” she said softly, “and you can’t stop.”
Twenty-five years ago, Claudia underwent chemotherapy, and her daily radiation treatments were in Portland. Even cancer could not keep her away from her shop, which she loves so much. Claudia still came to work each morning before making the long drive for treatment. Looking back now, she marvels at how she managed it.
“But you do what you have to do,” she said.
She still finds joy in arranging flowers and still feels the emotional weight behind every bouquet. “Everything I make is made with love,” she said. “These people all have a history, and you’ve got to honor it.”
Claudia Leash is now the oldest working person in The Dalles, a title she says once belonged to Angie DesRochers, owner of Hampton Furniture. Claudia mostly remembers her as hardworking and funny. Claudia often visited her at Hampton Furniture on days when she felt worn out from long work hours.
“I said, ‘Oh my gosh, it’s been such a long day.’ And she said, ‘Oh, honey, you just do it.’”
At an age when many people have long since stepped away from work, Claudia continues to create memories and greet her customers beside her small white dog, Wasabi.
When asked what keeps her going, she smiles, “I've had this habit forever; I always like to come a half an hour early. I like to sit and have my cup of coffee here every morning. My son has my coffee ready for me, along with my 14,000 vitamins. You appreciated that. And I love it. I feel like I would like to continue doing it as long as I get a kick and thrill out of putting all these objects together and making something beautiful. When you don’t have that feeling anymore, that’s when you retire. Then you know that you’re ready to retire.”
Sigman’s Flowers and Gifts is located at 200 E. 2nd St., The Dalles.
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