Milk was delivered to our back door and left in a little wooden box. My mother would write an order for how many quarts of milk, cartons of cottage cheese or sour cream that she needed and the Alpenrose Dairy man would leave it early in the day. Because she was home there was no worry about the milk getting warm before it was once again refrigerated. She could adjust the order as often as she needed, taking into account extra guests, an upcoming dinner party or a vacation. We never ran out of milk. That was a good thing since it was before the advent of stores open on Sunday or late in the evening.
The Alpenrose Dairy was local, just a few miles from our home. They encouraged field trips for school children and I was able to see the cows, the milking machines, the pastures and drink a glass of cold milk before boarding the bus back to school.
Alpenrose Dairy didn’t need to promote themselves as local and friendly since everyone already knew they were both. After all, a little white truck with a jovial milkman came to our house regularly. So regularly, of course, that in our day a child who didn’t resemble either parent was jokingly linked to the milkman!
Saved By Words 
Those are great memories. When I was growing up we had the milkman truck come by and mom would fill out the little order slips. Those were days when you could leave the front door unlocked.
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We never locked anything.
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I was one of those nicknamed kids at first!
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LOL
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I remember as a child, we had a silver box on the front porch where the milk was placed when delivered. It came in glass bottles and was delicious – whole milk, of course before the low-fat craze. The same company (Smith Brothers) still delivers milk and other products here.
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With little foil caps on the bottles and cream on the top of the milk.
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What lovely memories you have Elizabeth. I never drink milk but I eat food with a little milk in them.
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Thanks for enjoying this different time.
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Funny how things change. We had milk delivered and it was all anyone at our house drank besides coffee or beer. Now no one in our family drinks it. We do keep boxes of almond milk in the basement for our coffee and different recipes. I don’t know if that’s typical of today’s American family or not.
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My husband still drinks it and we are always running out!
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so, that’s how the joke originated. Too funny.
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We had the same suggestion here in Australia with milkmen & fatherhood lol! 😀
Jennifer
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That’s hilarious to learn.
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When I was a girl, milk used to be delivered daily by a milkman. It came in glass bottle with a silver foil came and the cream used to collect at the top of the bottle. The milkman also delivered fresh orange juice.
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I think we could have received orange juice, but my mom always bought those little frozen tubes that you had to stir and stir and stir to get them to melt.
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We had milk deliveries to the front doorstep all over the UK. Some companies also sold cream, eggs, and bread. But the problem in London was that if you had already left for work, someone might steal it. In the summer, it could also go off on a hot day.
I stopped having milk delivered in London in 1989, but some of my neighbours in Beetley still have doorstep deliveries in 2024.
Best wishes, Pete.
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I don’t know why it stopped here years ago. I am delighted that it is back. Here they will provide insulated coolers if you ask.
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We used to have raw milk straight from the farm where Dad worked. Milk has never been the same since pasteurisation and homogenisation was enforced!
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Oh for the cream on the top of the milk.
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The second of my late wives remembered milk being delivered in a pram – she had a photograph to prove it.
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How fun to see.
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at one point in my childhood – Mother would put out actual pans with handles – and the milkman would ladle milk into them from a very large canister. Later it was glass milk bottles where you bought tokens and left them as payment. And then it was the turn of plastic tokens that you left in your milk box and hoped than no one pinched them…
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I love learning about the various ways people got milk after they stopped owning cows and before they drove to the store themselves.
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