My dad and the Divco

First off, this post technically belongs in the 'Car & Truck' section, but it will have some other aspects that make it more general-interest, so I'm putting it on the main page...

There have been a few posts here on the forum about Divcos, that served as the workhorse of the milk delivery industry in the 50's and 60's.

I've mentioned here that my dad was a milkman in the Los Angeles area from the 50's through the early 80's and drove at least 2 different types of Divcos. Sad thing was, I couldn't show you, because I had no pictures of dad with any of his trucks. Heck, I couldn't even get close, because I couldn't even find a pic of a Divco from his dairy at all. That is, until now......

Every once in a while, I would do another Google image search, hoping to find a Divco in dad's livery. There were actually two versions, as the company had a logo redesign of their products and trucks in the early 60's. Anyway, I was checking the other day, and EUREKA! Found it! In fact, this photo, taken probably some time in the late 50's looked almost familiar. I had to really look at it closely to figure it was another milkman standing with the Divco, and not my dad.

Here's the photo:


The Edgemar Farms milkman in the photo is H.L. Hammond, who worked as a milkman from around 1960 up to 1992, spending many of those years at Edgemar Farms. My father, Richard (Dick) Loveday was there during those early years as well, working at Edgemar from around 1955 until about 1982 or so. Seeing this photo has brought back many memories, even though that's not my dad leaning against the truck.

Edgemar Farms was quite a popular dairy company, especially on the west side of the Los Angeles area from the 30's and well into the 90's. My dad, and I'm sure H.L. took great pride in their occupation. You had to be good at driving the Divco (standing up!), working in a very cold environment (the warehouse /loading dock), lugging a whole bunch of dairy products (not just milk) up to the house, and then be an excellent salesman on top of it. My dad (and I believe H.L. as well) had a route in one of the upper-class areas where you had to take the products right into the kitchen - no leaving them on the porch.

When I reached my teens, my dad would take me along with him maybe once a year. Getting up at 4:00 in the morning, we would be in the ice box warehouse loading the truck up by 5:00 AM or so. Thing is, dad would sometimes have to stall for time once his truck was loaded, as his customers needed to be up and walking around before he could deliver to them. Some milkmen could finish their route by noon or so. Dad usually didn't get done on the route until 1 or 2. While running the route with my dad, I got to see him in a completely different environment. Out here, he wasn't 'dad' anymore. He was working - greeting the customers, talking about the news of the day, or sports. (Funny, when he was at home, he didn't seem all that interested in sports....). Then when it came to the product order, dad knew his customers and their habits so well, he told them what they needed - in a nice way, of course!

My dad's been gone a few years now, and H.L. Hammond has passed on as well - good men all.

Now, the second part of the story -

I found the photo of the Edgemar Farms Divco on this blog:
http://rickdebruhl.com/

Here's the specific page.
http://rickdebruhl.com/?p=1061

The blog is written by one Rick DeBruhl. You may have heard of him. He kindly wrote me and gave permission to use the photo here. H.L. Hammond was his father. Thanks, Rick! Rick's already been to our forum and given it a look-see.


Marshall

 

That's really cool, KK

 

Marshall I really enjoyed this post. Thanks. I lived in cental Illinois in a town of maybe 25-30,000 at the time. Yet I can only remember a few milk trucks. I'm sure there were others and they were Divcos.
My dad's friend worked for Bordons dairy. "If it's Bordons it's got to be good!" Had a picture of a happy cow on the side.

And there was Sealtest Dairy so there had to be more milk trucks around town. I even remember before this an old guy and an old horse pulled a wagon selling dairy products.

 

Cool story, thanks for posting.

 

I grew up the oldest of 12 kids........in Illinois and Iowa, so we got LOTS of milk delivered. We had a "milk machine" in the kitchen. It held 2 5 gallon containers of milk, and the milk man delivered a 5 gallon container 6 days a week. We also got eggs delivered, 3 dozen at a time, but I can't remember how many times a week the "egg lady" came by........ah, the good old days, huh?

 

My wife's father was also a milk man in the 50's and 60's ,And drove a Divco for Royal Crest Dairy in Dayton Ohio. He passed away in the early 90's and the dairy has been closed for years.
I hear home delivery of dairy products may be coming back, At least in some larger city's.

 

Enjoyed reading your story - thanks for posting. Divco's are interesting trucks - their versatility and longevity is admirable.

 

I just flashed back to being a little kid and at times we on our bikes would follow the milk man around the nieborhood, every now and then in summer he would call a spilt milk day and give us each a small chocolate milk before he drove off to the next area. He had a "ring ring" bicycle bell on his truck and when you heard it in the early AM every kid was out the door! I can still remember him saying "spilt milk day" and you would think it was a ice cream truck with the hoard of kids following until he got to the end of the route. The 1 rule he had was, he never wanted to see our empty milk containers left as garbage. or no more spilt milk. He eazy was giving out 20-30 small milks every couple of weeks. Good times, stuff like that will never happen again.

 

^^^^

Yeah, dad would keep a few of those little chocolate milk cartons around for the kids, too.......

 

Our grade schools gave those small cartons of white or chocolate milk during morning breaks for years. I suppose they were donated by one of the dairies.

 

We used to follow the truck around on our bikes and were happy to get a chunk of ice from the milkman.
At some point they switched to electric refrigeration, so no more ice.

Unless the driver had to use one of the old trucks that day.

 

We had Borden Bros and Sealtest Bros dairy products in Atlanta area too back in the day like the Cat Man mentioned. The most famous Atlanta area dairy I believe was Mathis Bros from Decatur, GA. They were a pretty large dairy operation with a bunch of delivery trucks. We got home delivery from Mathis made to a silver box(insulated I suppose?) that sat on our carport in East Point, GA. R L Mathis(1898-1991) built this company from scratch into a large operation that stood for high quality. Sadly, after his passing the dairy closed the following year.

The most famous dairy operation around these parts of the US these days is prolly Barber from AL. George Barber has built a large operation that has supported his dreams of building Barber Motorsports park in AL that includes a beautiful world class motor racing facility and a large(1000 examples) motorcycle museum.

http://www.barbersdairy.com/company.html

https://barbermotorsports.com/park/

Thanks for stating this thread KK. I love anything to do with these old milk trucks,lol.

BTW, I saw that naughty Rick Debruhl lurking around the site last week and thought I recognized the name from when I foolishly paid for cable TV, haha! Welcome to the site Mr Debruhl!

 

There were actually two Divco chassis used as milk trucks. The first, as shown in the picture of the Edgemar truck, was a basic 'ice box' on wheels - no refrigeration, just insulation. The milkman would have to bag up enough ice in burlap bags to keep the products cold. The second Divco was built on a somewhat larger frame, and it had dual rear wheels. I'm almost positive it had a bigger engine as well. This one had an actual refrigeration unit in it.

 

i'll ahve to remember to post the Divco pic from a show earlier this year if I ever find my camera

great story KK

 

Might'n it be on the shelf with the other 50 cameras you have?? :confused: