GLASS MILK BOTTLES

GLASS MILK BOTTLES.

My parents never gave any negative thought to using child labor.  If you were old enough to help, you helped.  Life on a dairy farm meant never ending work every day of the week for everyone.

Cows were milked twice a day.  The milk was strained, cooled and put into 5 gallon cans.  It was refrigerated until it was put into long- necked glass milk bottles.  This was done once every day after the second milking.  The filled bottles were put into metal crates (carriers) which held 12 bottles.  A smaller carrier was used to make the individual deliveries.

As soon as I was old enough, my job was to wash the bottles.  I stood on a wooden box in order to reach the brush that cleaned the bottles.  The brush was mounted on an electric motor and it rotated.  Bottles were put onto the brush as it turned. Then the bottle was manually turned until all areas inside had been brushed and cleaned.

There were three large vats.  The first one held hot water and soap.  The second vat held water and a strong disinfectant. The third was a clear water rinse.  I usually washed 24 bottles at a time.

When the school bus dropped me off after school, I often went to the milk house and counted the number of crates of empty bottles.  I could then estimate how long it would take me to finish washing the bottles.

The bottles from the home deliveries had usually been washed by the homemakers.  The bottles from the restaurants were another matter.  They often were emptied and put back into a crate without being rinsed.  I left what I called the “dirty” bottles until last as they took more effort to get clean.

I would wash the bottles in the vat and unplug the brush before the rinsing process.  After rinsing they were put upside down in the crates to drain.  The crates were on rolling dollies.  The cement floor was soon wet.  (It sloped to a floor drain.)  I was frequently admonished to dry my hands well before unplugging the brush.  Did I do that?  It was too much trouble.  I would give the cord a yank unless there was someone else in the milk house.  My Dad and brother probably suspected as much.  The brushes were changed often.  One day I went in and there was not only a new brush, but it was on a new motor which had an on-off switch.  That was a little safer and I managed not to electrocute myself.

By the time I mastered bottle washing I had begun to help with the bottling of the milk.  The bottling machine only filled two bottles at a time.  There was a rhythm to it.  The empty bottles were on the left and filled bottles on the right. Two empty bottles were put up and moved under the spouts to be filled.  When they were filled, they were placed under a capper and capped one at a time.  The old long neck caps went inside a rim on a ridge.  A lever forced the cap down.  The capped bottles were crated and the process began again.  I capped two bottles, placed them in a crate, and got two empties ready while two bottles were filling.  It was quite a dance for a little girl, but I was pretty good at it.  At least, I never got fired.

I washed bottles and worked in the milk house until I entered 7^th grade.  At that time a huge automatic bottle washer was moved in.  It was a monster.  My Dad hired two neighbor boys who not only operated the new machine but did other chores as well.  I never used it and never worked in the milk house again.