LAWRENCE AT LARGE: From dairy to deadline

Posted 4/7/15

Two of my great interests in life are history and the dairy industry. I’ll pause while you snicker or laugh out loud.

But seriously, I find both fascinating. I have my grandpa and dad to thank for both. They were dairy farmers who also loved …

This item is available in full to subscribers.

Please log in to continue

E-mail
Password
Log in

LAWRENCE AT LARGE: From dairy to deadline

Posted

Writing the history of the Cream of the Valley Dairies, which is in today’s paper, was a labor of love for me.

Two of my great interests in life are history and the dairy industry. I’ll pause while you snicker or laugh out loud.

But seriously, I find both fascinating. I have my grandpa and dad to thank for both. They were dairy farmers who also loved history and I inherited both those interests from them.

My paternal grandpa, Lewis Lawrence was born in a sod shanty in 1884 on the windswept Dakota Territory prairie.

His mom died when he was just a kid and his dad Knute soon wandered off, abandoning his farm and his two sons and one daughter. Grandpa moved from relative to relative, working on farms in Minnesota before he returned to South Dakota around 1900. He worked for the local livery stable but eventually married a farmer’s daughter and started his own farm.

My dad was born there in 1920. Grandpa milked cows to help pay the bills — he and my grandmother and their kids also raised hogs, turkeys and other animals — and grew crops on hundreds of acres.

Dad moved to a nearby town when he married my mom in 1951and soon landed a job at a local dairy while still working on land he owned as well as the family farm. By the time I came around, he was the foreman of the Bibby-Kallemeyn Dairy in Brookings, S.D.

When I look at the photos of the Cream of the Valley Dairies that we are publishing today, thanks to LeRoy Fesuner, it takes me back to the BK Dairy. The sights and particularly the smells of the dairy — not cow-related, either — returned immediately.

Dad supervised and trained younger drivers but also did a route five or six days a week. My older brother Vern went along to help several times; I was allowed to accompany Dad once and was thrilled to do so.

I think getting to spend time with him in that big yellow van was a major reason for my excitement. The free containers of chocolate milk helped, as did the comic book he bought me when we stopped for lunch.

I loved to read, so I was able to combine my dual interests even then. By 1966, when I was almost 8, Dad quit the creamery (although he later filled in when they needed help) and moved back to the farm where he had been born.

In addition to working long days in the fields, Dad milked cows twice a day. I think in the 20 years on the farm, we missed one milking, deciding to pass on a bitterly cold night when the cows were not producing much milk. Even then, my sister Julie and I had to beg Dad not to go out into that frigid night.

That’s more than 14,000 milkings. Vern helped out from the start and by 1970, I was promoted from chicken chores to dairy assistant.

Soon I was milking cows, too, and by 1972 I was running the barn on an almost daily basis. I continued to milk cows for another decade, and for a few years owned between six and 12 head of cattle.

It was a booming time for the milk business and those regular checks provided me with spending money. But I also really enjoyed the work and the usually gentle cows.

While I was majoring in history at South Dakota State University — what else? — I also developed an interest in newspapers. I started writing for the school newspaper, The Collegian, and soon was swept up in the excitement of journalism. I didn’t always come home on weekends to milk anymore.

Dad hoped I would return to the farm and take things over as he passed the age of 60. I was offered a massive loan to refurbish our barn and buy dozens of head of top-quality Holstein cattle, but rejected it, a move I still question at times.

Plans to teach history and coach high school sports were also tossed away. I wanted to write.

Since 1978, with a few short breaks to deal 21 in Reno and Las Vegas — it’s a fun job for a few months but after that, your brain may start to leak out of your ears — I have worked for newspapers across the country.

I have written for papers in my home state and also worked in newsrooms in Texas, Oregon, Montana, Minnesota, Oklahoma, Nebraska and, for the past two years, Wyoming.

I have enjoyed my time in this astoundingly beautiful state filled with polite, friendly people who are always willing to answer a question or let me snap a photo or two of them. I appreciate that and fully realized how nice it was in my final days here.

But the call to be closer to home, family and friends has been stronger lately. This is my last day as the Powell Tribune’s managing editor, although I hope to continue to contribute a few columns and stories for it from time to time while living and working amidst the green, rolling fields of the Midwest.

Before he died at 92 in 2013, Dad and I used to love to drive around the country and check out the farms and dairy herds. He used to tease me about making a return to the barn and milking.

I don’t think he knew how often I thought about it, too. Dairy cattle are wonderful creatures and I enjoyed the routine of milking, especially on a warm summer night with a glimpse of a green pasture outlined through a open Dutch door and a baseball game on the radio.

So that’s why I enjoyed writing the story of the Cream of the Valley Dairies. I don’t want to milk this, but it was a pleasant way to say so long.

Comments