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The Thompson-Ames Historical Society
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9/19/06 Thompson-Ames Historical Society Hosts Joint Meeting with Laconia Historical Society
THOMPSON-AMES HISTORICAL SOCIETY HOSTS JOINT MEETING WITH LACONIA HISTORICAL SOCIETY
On Monday evening, October 2nd, 2006, Gilford's Thompson-Ames
Historical Society will host the annual potluck dinner and joint meeting
with the Laconia Historical Society. Potluck supper will begin at 6 p.m.
followed by a brief business meeting and program at 7:30. This
get-together will take place at the Gilford Community Church and the public
is welcome.
Join us as this year's featured speaker, Dr. Judith Moyer, Assistant
Professor of History at UNH, presents her program, "Clean Milkers, Prompt
Delivery: New England Home Milk Delivery, 1860-1960". This talk traces
the development of home milk delivery in New England through the newly
industrialized American cities up to suburban doorsteps.
When wanting to learn first-hand about the home milk delivery business
in Gilford, one only needs to interview well-known resident, Pete LaBonte,
who grew up on his family's dairy farm which was located on Hoyt Road in
Gilford. Pete's father, Arthur J. LaBonte bought this farm in 1930. It
was the last working dairy farm in Gilford, which closed its doors forever
in 1985.
The LaBonte dairy barn usually housed 75 cows and about 50 were milked
each day, twice a day. A farmer's day would start with a milking at 5 a.m.
As the milk was transferred from the milking barn to the milk room where it
was cooled, breakfast was eaten. After the milk was put into glass milk
bottles (which are now considered collectibles) and paper caps put onto the
tops, Arthur LaBonte would then load the milk into his delivery vehicle and
head off to customers in Gilford, Laconia and Lakeport. Another
collectible from this by-gone era, is the "milk carrier", which is a metal
basket with handle that would hold the glass milk bottles. During the
interview for this article, Pete LaBonte proudly donated his father's milk
carrier to T-AHS and its accompanying LaBonte Farm milk bottle with paper
cap. It will be displayed in the farm section of the Union Meetinghouse in
Gilford.
Pete, who would sometimes fill in for his father on these routes, has
many fond memories of the days of home milk delivery, or "peddlin' milk",
as he calls it. When asked if winter snowstorms would cancel any of the
deliveries, Pete replied, "Oh, no, the deliveries just took longer, that's
all!" Home milk delivery was a 7-day-a-week job, but, as Pete said, "We
re-arranged our schedule a little on Sunday so that we could still attend
church."
LaBonte's customers enjoyed having their milk delivered right to their
doors. They did not have the metal milk boxes that some of us still
remember having outside our front doors. Rather, these customers were
actually given their milk bottles by either Arthur or Pete. If a customer
was not home at the time, the milk was left by the door and in winter it
would freeze without any detriment to the milk. This milk was fresh, raw
milk and was a combination of the milk from the milking of the night before
and the morning's milking. Raw milk, as so many of us remember, has
delicious cream that rises to the top which can then be skimmed off and
made into butter.
Pete was quick to add in that his family was not the only family who
owned dairy farms and who peddled their milk. Family names that we all
recognize in the town of Gilford such as: Sawyer, Wilson, Bolduc, White,
Weeks, Drouin, Swain, Harris, Peters, and Dutile, were all families that
Pete fondly remembers. Pete also mentioned that when he sat and counted
the number of farms (not necessarily dairy) that he remembered in Gilford,
he came up with a total of 32. That's quite a large number considering the
size of this town. Gilford's history is firmly rooted in farming.
After many, many years of peddling 14 cases of milk per day, 12 quarts
to a case, Arthur LaBonte, in 1970, switched to the modern method of milk
delivery, which is called bulk delivery. A milk truck would arrive at the
LaBonte Farm and all of the day's milk would be hauled away in bulk. Gone
were the days of home milk delivery.
In speaking with a now-retired, very happy and healthy Pete LaBonte,
we can see that the farming days in Gilford were good ones; days that were
spent out-of-doors in all weather and in all seasons. It's an era in
Gilford that is very much missed by those who lived through it, and for
those who didn't, we certainly enjoy hearing about all the great memories
from residents such as Pete LaBonte.
For more information about this joint meeting, please call Gilford's
Thompson-Ames Historical Society at 527-9009 or visit our web-site at
gilfordhistoricalsociety.net.
T-AHS wishes to thank the Samuel P. Pardoe Foundation for their
generous funding of our 2006 programs which include Dr. Judith Moyer's
dairy presentation.
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