in other words
february16
2017
7
The Good Ol ’ Days
By Tobie Finzel
Vernonia Dairies
In our May 2015 column we
shared the story of Pebble Creek Dairy,
established in the mid-1930s, by Oliver
Graves. Dairying in the Upper Nehalem
was an occupation for many, and most
farms had at least a few cows to supply
the family and provide income from
the excess production. Because dairies
so often changed hands as people
moved away and sold their farms, it
is challenging to try to identify them
all. We’ve gleaned a few tidbits from
memoirs and old newspaper articles, and
the museum has an accounting ledger
from a local creamery - more about that
below.
For some families, their only
cash income was from the cream they
sold to larger creameries for butter
production. Unlike milk, pure cream,
a saturated and lactose-free fat, could
be shipped longer distances without
refrigeration. In Dora Marlin’s memoir
of life on her parents’ farm on Deer
Creek and Little Deer Creek near Natal,
she recounts her young life on the dairy
farm. One of her chores as a child was to
chop up root vegetables the family grew
and feed them to the cows along with
their hay each morning. The enriched
diet increased the butterfat content of the
milk which resulted in a higher return
for their efforts. Excess milk was fed to
the pigs and other farm animals. They
sold their high quality cream to the now-
defunct Raven Creamery in Northeast
Portland located on Union Avenue,
now Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.
There was also a commercial creamery
in Clatskanie about which we have no
information, but the building still stands
just outside the main part of town on the
road to Quincy.
Separating the cream from the
milk was accomplished by the gravity
method. Fresh milk was poured into
pans and the cream skimmed from the
top. Later, mechanical cream separators
used centrifugal force to complete the
task. It reduced the amount of time the
cream was mixed in with milk and thus
lessened the chance it would sour. In
either case, the cream was put into cans
to be picked up by or delivered to local
creameries. Empty pans and separators
had to be carefully cleaned each day, a
task that often fell to the children.
The ledger mentioned above
is presumed to be from the Nehalem
Valley Creamery in Mist based on the
supplier/customer names. It shows how
a creamery kept track of receipts and
payments. With one page per supplying
farmer, the daily delivery of milk was
recorded in pounds and percent of
butterfat content. Payments were made
based on the going rate for the product
less a percentage for the creamery’s cost
of hauling, often one to two cents per
pound of milk. The creamery issued
monthly payment checks for the prior
month’s net total. Some took the fi nished
butter as part of their payments.
With
better
roads
and
refrigerated trucks in the 1940s and
beyond, more milk from local farms
went to the Portland area for processing
into pasteurized milk, butter and cheese.
In the late 1940s through the early 1960s,
the Bush family owned and operated the
Nehalem Dairy. From their location
near the railroad on Rose Avenue where
West Oregon Electric stands today, the
Bushes distributed milk, pop and beer to
Timber and Vernonia.
In 1948 Henry Anderegg, who
had worked for his cousin’s Portland area
dairy, Meadowland, for fourteen years,
saw an ad for a dairy farm in Vernonia.
Son of a dairyman and of Swiss heritage,
Henry grew up in the business. He and
his wife, Isabel, purchased the farm that
was four miles out on Mist Drive. The
herd consisted of eight cows. They
fi rst wholesaled their milk and built
up their herd. He also worked for the
Nehalem Dairy as a route driver. In
1952 he bought the Pebble Creek Dairy
from Albert and Marie Stager who had
acquired the dairy from Oliver Graves
in 1946. Henry thus became an owner,
producer and distributor – a very time
consuming job.
By 1956, Henry and Isabel
decided to focus on milk distribution,
sold their cows and began buying
processed and bottled milk. Later that
year, they bought the Nehalem Dairy
from the Bush family and renamed it
Vernonia Milk Farms. The volume of
local business had outgrown his existing
processing plant, and enlarging it would
be prohibitively expensive due to the new
Vernonia
Dental
From Virgil Powell’s Diary
Virgil Powell (1887-1963) was a long-
time resident whose family had a farm
in the Upper Nehalem Valley between
Natal and Pittsburg. Each year from
1906 until 1955, he kept a regular diary
of his activities. In February 1907, his
entries focused on Valentine’s Day and a
new cream separator.
Tuesday, February 12, 1907:
Carried the mail to Mist. Mailed
125 post cards. Had more postals
than I ever mailed before. Had
my picture taken when I was
coming up.
Sent Valentine
postal to Alice and also got a
postal from Alice. Very bright
all day.
Got my Valentine
postals in the evening.
Wednesday, February 13: Put
some new runners on the sled
the first thing in the morning.
Trimmed up some of the apple
trees in the afternoon.
Very
bright all day. Addressed 10
Valentine postals to Alice.
Thursday, February 14: Carried
the mail to Mist. Had a pretty
heavy mail.
Sent several
Valentine postals to Alice. Very
bright all day.
Brought my
bicycle up as far as Ray’s mail
box. Had a pretty hard time
with Lad when I went to put
the wheel on him. Went up to
Vernonia to a dance. Not a
very large crowd there but had
a dandy time.
Friday, February 15: Got home
from the Vernonia dance at 8
A.M. Only slept one hour during
the day. Was too sleepy to do
much work so bummed around
all day. Very hot all day. Fixed
up the bicycle a little in the
afternoon.
Saturday, February 16: Carried
the mail to Mist. Grange day at
Natal. Pretty bright all day.
Got a beautiful picture button.
Got home at 4 P.M. Got the
new Tubular Separator. Got a
Valentine postal from Minnie.
Alice got back home from
Portland.
Sunday, February 17: Did not
do much of anything. Worked
a little on the new separator.
Bright and fine day. Went up
to Pittsburg in the evening and
mailed several postal cards.
Monday, February 18: Hauled
posts for the river fence. Went
up to Pittsburg and brought
fanning mill down. Mr. Elliott
came over after dinner and
we set the separator up. Pretty
good day but cloudy. Sprinkled
a little in the evening. Albert
Parker came down in the
evening to get me to carry the
mail for another week.
The Vernonia Pioneer Museum is
located at E. 511 Bridge Street and is
open from 1 to 4 pm on Saturdays and
Sundays (excluding holidays) all year.
From June through mid-September,
the museum is also open on Fridays
from 1 – 4 pm. There is no charge for
admission but donations are always
welcome.
Become a member of the
museum for an annual $5 fee to receive
the periodic newsletter. We now have
a page on the Vernonia Hands on Art
website, www.vernoniahandsonart.org.
If you are a Facebook user, check out
the Vernonia Pioneer Museum page. The
museum volunteers are always pleased
to enlist additional volunteers to help
hold the museum open and assist in
other ways. Please stop by and let one
of the volunteers know of your interest in
helping out.
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demand for half gallon containers for
which they were not equipped. Instead,
he sent the raw milk from local farms
by refrigerated truck to Meadowland
Dairy for processing and packaging.
He delivered milk to 150 homes daily
on two routes, alternating days, and
daily to local businesses until the early
1970s when he sold the business to
Bob and Judy Bates. In addition to the
milk business, the Andereggs were very
active in community activities until their
move to Forest Grove in the 1980s.
There have been many other
dairies in the Upper Nehalem over the
years with a few small operations still in
business, but the family cow and home-
delivered milk are now mostly fond
memories of times gone by.
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