I
read an article by John Sumwalt, a friend of mine about his recollections of
milking on his father's farm (See John Sumwalt's Article) and it brought back my own memories. My
grandfather was a dairy farmer. He never
milked over 30 cows on his small one-hundred acre farm in the hills of Richland
County. In the 1940's, 50's, and the
early 60’s
a family could live on such a farm. I
only lived with him for short periods when I was a child, but for many years we
lived in a small town a mile and a half away and spent a lot of time on the
farm. I never milked, but I was often up
and in the barn as grandpa, later aided by his sons, milked. I remember, as my friend John does, the
seemingly universal call "come boss!…,
come boss…!"
that echoed across the valley to call the cows in for milking. I remember the warm steamy atmosphere,
tainted with the smell of cow urine and manure that greeted me on those super
cold winter days when I entered the barn.
I remember the smell of hay, feed and silage.
In
those days, grandfather used a milking machine. Before the early 1950’s the milking had been done by hand. The
milking machine was attached to the udders and hung by a strap thrown over the
animal. There was no pipeline for the
milk. When the cow was “milked out”
a lid was raised off a strainer sitting on a milk can, and the milker's
contents were poured in. When the can
was full, it was taken to the milk house using a milk cart, a one wheeled
device with two handles, something like a wheelbarrow. A hook between the handles went through one
of the can handles to hold it in place.
The cans were lowered into a tub of cold water to wait the coming of the
milk truck.
Grandpa was a religious man; a patient man who loved his
family, but a skittish cow could raise his ire. He used a home made milking stool when he
kneeled down beside a cow to place the milking machine or "milk out"
the cow by hand. This stool was square with an extension for a pail to sit on, off
the floor. He had a powerful grip, as
all hand Milker's did. My great
grandfather who ran the farm first, milked by hand his entire life. He was in
his 90’s when I was about ten, and the ritual when children visited was to line
up and shake his hand. His grip was
still powerful and the experience of shaking his hand was excruciating, though
he did not mean to hurt us. When a cow
was jumpy and kicked my grandfather, or swished it's dirty tail into his face
he would sometimes become angry and shout "you dirty cur!" To us this epithet carried all the power of a
filthy mouthed Marine drill instructor at boot camp. Such language was best used infrequently to
emphasize one's depth of emotion. Today
the vilest swearing is used by many younger folks as filler in friendly conversations. I can't understand why these moderns bother
to swear at all when the words carry no more weight than "and" and
"the."
My mother remembers her life on the farm
in the 1930’s and 1940’s. Before 1941 the
late milking was done on winter nights by the light of one or two kerosene
lamps hung in the center of the barn between the rows of stalls. In that shadowy darkness the milking was done
by all the family members old enough to work.
Each milker had a three legged stool.
My grandfather’s first two children were girls, so my mother, who was
the oldest, was put to work milking at about age eight. Her younger sister followed a few years
later. Both of the children had to rise
early, milk four cows each by hand while their parents milked the rest, then
run to the house, wash and dress for school.
After school they walked back home, fed the animals, which included two work
horses and eat dinner. Then it was back
to the barn to milk. The walk to school
was a mile and a half. The walking ended in May 1947 when 8 year old Georgia Jean
Weckler disappeared on her walk home from school near Fort Atkinson,
Wisconsin. Her body was never found. From then on grandpa found time to drive his
girls to and from school. In 1941 the
farm saw several big changes. Electrical
service came to the farm, and grandfather got his first tractor. Though the horses were still used for many
years, life was becoming easier.
I am recounting the story if my grandfather’s
farm and milking because I believe it is typical of the experiences of Wisconsin’s
rural dairy farmers. Some may have
modernized sooner, some later, but the generation now in their later years were
workers from an early age.