The Milk Hauler

Written about Charles Walmsley Flanders

by his grandson James Ray Willis, Jr.

Charles Flanders began each day milking his small herd of about twenty-five cows. This was a chore that was always shared by his wife Verlie and they worked like a well rehearsed team. Inside the small wooden barn, there was an unusual feature, a cement floor, in the area where the milking was actually done. In the small room adjacent to it, a small air compressor chugged. It was high-tech for the times for small operations and this was the only little dairy on this milk route to be outfitted with the new automatic milking machines

In the milking room there was an air outlet above each of the four stalls. One end of the air hose slipped onto this and the other end fitted onto the top of the milker that sat on the floor beside the cow. When the valve was turned, the milker began making a hissing sound. Charlie or Verlie would hold the part of the milker that actually attached to the cow in one hand like a wilted four petal flower. They would wipe the cow's teats with a wet cloth, then quickly, they slipped each of the four cups onto the cow. The hissing sound stopped and was replaced by an alternating, rhythmical, chugging sound and the milk began making little squirting noises as it was pumped into the cans. Slowly, the can began to fill. But the machine couldn't finish off the job and in a few minutes, the milker was still pulsating but there was no sound of milk flowing into the can. It was necessary to "strip" the cow the old fashion way when the milker was taken off. Nothing could be left in the udder.

After the milk was collected in the shiny stainless steel containers, it was strained through cloth or fiber filters into the large milk cans of about ten to fifteen gallons. Flanders would then put the new milk into his cooler, a big chest like affair that resembled a food freezer in shape but was made of steel and had two lids that closed towards the center from either end. It was about half full of chilled water and the milk cooled down quickly. The cooler, along with the cement floor and the electric milkers, was another rarity but it was one that increased the earnings from their work.

The inside of a milk can on the back of a truck rumbling over unpaved East Texas backroads was very much like the inside of a churn. And, indeed, many cans of milk, particularly during the hot Texas summers, were returned to their owners because the contents were spoiled or "clabbered" as they called it. Taking the milk from the previous days work and pouring it out onto the ground can be very disheartening, lessened only a little if it can be used to feed the hogs. So the warm milk from Flanders' cows spent some time in the cooler before beginning the long trip to the processing plant.

Flanders really need this little advantage because his milk was the first one loaded and was on the truck longer than that of all of the others. He was the milk hauler. After milking, and then after breakfast. He loaded his milk onto the big flat-bed truck and began his long daily trip of about fifty to sixty stops before taking the load to the cheese processing plant in Winnsboro. This plant later closed and the trip became even longer when he had to drive another sixty miles round trip to Mt. Pleasant each day.

This picture was made July 17^th 1944. (l-r) Verlie Flanders, Linda Kay Willis, James Ray (Jimmy) Willis, and Charles Walmsley Flanders and his milk hauling truck. This picture was made in Winnsboro and Flanders still hauled milk after he moved to Quitman and he later had a much larger truck.

This was not the Grade-A drinking milk that was hauled this way but was rather the milk that would end up in cheeses and other similar dairy products. The people that sold this milk were not true dairymen but rather people who did this to supplement their other income, many being small farmers whose main income came from their seasonal crops. There were some though, who depended on this for their livelihood.

At many of the little farms along the route, the owners would be waiting when the milk truck arrived. It would be their communication of the day with the rest of the world and it would be a chance for a few words of conversation as Flanders unloaded the empty cans from the previous day and replaced them on the truck with the full ones. There was always the nagging anxiety about whether the cans being returned would be empty and sparkling clean or heavy and full of clabbered milk. The unloading of the cans was not strenuous wok but loading a full can of milk onto the truck, which was a good four feet from the ground, required brawn. It called for a couple hardy swings between the legs before hefting it up onto the flat-bed. Flanders was a big man and did it easily.

Some of the cans had neat little squares with the owners' number printed in them but most just had hand painted numbers on them. Some were painted in red but black was the commonly accepted color. These numbers determined who got which cans, but more importantly who got paid for the milk that was in them. At the processing plant, daily records were kept of the can numbers and their weight before the milk was poured out. Once a week, Flanders would be carrying the check that paid for the weeks production and, on that day, everyone was waiting his arrival. This was the only day of the week that Flanders saw almost all of these folks because there were all kinds along the route, including those who had no inclination towards any conversation. At a few place, Flanders left the check tucked into the lid of the can - but if you looked back, you could usually see it being retrieved.

When all of the milk was picked up the trip was made to the processing plant. The building was clad with tile in a goldish tint and the floors inside were cement. They were always freshly washed as were the stainless steel fixtures. It was very clean and smelled of fresh milk. When Flanders reached the processing plant, he unloaded each can onto a gravity conveyor that carried it through a hole in the wall into the building. Before being loaded onto the conveyor though, each can had to have the lid loosened and Flanders wielded a small steel bar to do this. The sound of it striking the lids echoed through the air all the while the truck was being unloaded, constantly intermingled with the shouted conversations between Flanders and the workmen there.

Just inside the building, another man was checking the milk to be sure it was acceptable. If the milk was spoiled, the can would be routed down a conveyor that went along the inside wall of the building to another hole in the wall that returned it to the outside and to the loading area. When the milk was good, the can number and the weight were logged and the milk was poured into a huge stainless steel tank. Then the empty can with its' lid travelling behind rolled down the conveyor and into the loud, hissing steam cleaner and then back out to the hole where the reject cans had gone, to the outside of the building. Flanders had moved his truck there by then and he began loading the empty cans. Again the sound of the steel bar rang through the air as the lids were coupled with their cans and seated onto them.

After leaving the plant, there would be a stop in Winnsboro for any purchases that needed to be made and always, at least when I was along, there would be a stop at the Sabine Valley Ice cream store for a big, twenty-five cent chocolate malt. And almost always, there'd be another stop a few miles down the road in Cartwright at Lundley's Grocery and Gas Station to join the domino game that was in progress there. Flanders always put a little more life into the game when he arrived, being a better man with words than most there . And he had a talent for putting barbs where they were most likely to produce some retort. He was a good domino player too. I learned the game standing or sitting behind him. Afterwards, he'd switch the diesel tank on the truck over to run on fumes for the last couple of miles home.

Then, it would be about time to do the milking.