Home Delivery of Ice, Milk, Laundry, etc.

[nico demouse]

My area (suburban Chicago) still offers milk delivery from one company. They leave a cooler on your porch for the bottles and pick up/drop off once a week.

My mom's best friend had a house with a milk door in the cupboard. It had a door inside so that milk could be put in from the outside of the house and set inside the kitchen cupboard. Pretty neat.

 

[Mario]

When I was a kid in Berlin we still had a milkman and even though he didn't make home deliveries anymore he would park his car in the street, ring a bell and wait for customers to sell them milk, eggs, vegetables, ice and candies. I think he vanished in the early 80's.

Another Berlin tradition thas has long since ceased to exist is the organ grinder (I know that other places had them too, but when I think of the Berlin of my childhood they are an inevitable part of my memories and inextricably linked to my hometown). You could hear his music long before he came through your street and people would wrap up a few coins in a piece of paper and throw it out of the window for him to pick up. All gone.

This is a Berlin style street organ, even though the photo was taken in Vienna:

 

[LizzieMaine]

We had milk delivery until the early 70s, and somewhere in her cellar my mother still has the galvanized metal box that sat on the doorstep to keep the milk cool.

Our dry-cleaner had a route truck, and you'd put a card in the window if you had something for him to pick up. That service lasted until the early eighties, and you'll still see some of those cards stuck in the front windows of old houses, waiting for pickups that will never come.

We had many neighborhood kids who sold fish off red wagons they pulled around. You didn't want to be at the end of their routes.

 

[Mario]

That service lasted until the early eighties, and you'll still see some of those cards stuck in the front windows of old houses, waiting for pickups that will never come.

That's a very sad picture you're painting there...

 

[nico demouse]

We had milk delivery until the early 70s, and somewhere in her cellar my mother still has the galvanized metal box that sat on the doorstep to keep the milk cool.

I have one of those galvanized milk coolers! I found it on Freecycle, of all places. I was hoping the cooler our milk delivery uses would fit inside, but they use a large Coleman type cooler and it's too big.

 

[Smithy]

Back home in NZ we always used the milkman up until the late 80s. You used to put the money or tokens in the used glass milk bottles and leave it out at night down by the letterbox so when Dad got up in the morning he'd go out to get the newspaper from the letterbox and the milk as well.

 

[Boodles]

I must be older than everyone

As a child I caught the tail end of coal deliveries in Chicago. You still see it occasionally in NYC.

In Charlotte, during the 50's, coal delivery was going full tilt. Herrin Bros. Coal & Ice, Co. The ice business was already on the wane, melted down by the likes of Kelvinator. Back in the days, our neighbor still got both ice and coal. The ice was in blocks, of course, and hoisted into the top of the ice box by the delivery man. These folks had both oil and coal heat, with the coal being sort of supplemental and so it was deilvered in big bags. We also took delivery of a bag or two of coal for our old coal burning fireplace, the type with the really small firebox. My grandparents, also in Charlotte, had a big coal furnace in the basement. Herrin delivered bulk coal to their home in a truck with an auger. The coal was dumped into an iron chute on the side of the house. Secrest was our dry cleaners of choice. Coble was the milkman. We had sort of an insulated tin box, issued by Coble, on the stoop for the milk. It might have been big enough for 4 qt. bottles, or maybe even only two. Gees, Mr. Big, I love thinking about this again. Thanks.

 

[vintage_jayhawk]

In my hometown, my great-grandfather was the ice delivery man. My great-grandma always loved to tell the story about the time she went to help him and he accidentally locked her in the ice house. She had to wait until he'd run his entire route for him to come back and let her out! The running joke in the family was how long was it before he realized she wasn't on the route with him!

 

[Big Man]

It's interesting to read how many folks still have some type of home deliveries in their area. It would appear that this service is now limited to "the city" (big city?) areas.

I live in a rather rural area, and the home delivery services just about all disappeared by the early to mid 1970's. I always wondered why, if it was profitable (and I assume it was) in rural areas during the period from the 1930's to the 1960's, then why is it not profitable now? [huh]

 

[dhermann1]

Let's see. Back in the early 50's in New York we had a milk man. I believe he came 3 days each week. It was all glass bottles then, and you'd leave your empties out in the evening, and the next morning you'd get whatever your regular order was. I guess the milkman came around and collected every month. Our milk man was a very nice man, as I recall. When going through some my old family memoribilia (of which i have boxes and boxes) I came across a pile of condolence notes from when my father passed away in 1953. Included was a very sweet card from the milk man.
There was still a vegetable vendor with a horse drawn wagon down on Broadway around 123rd St as late as 1953.
When we moved up state, in 1955, there was still an ice house in Chautauqua NY. A few old fashioned souls still had those elegant looking ice boxes, made of solid oak, with zinc lined interiors. During our first winter there the roof caved in on the old ice house, from all the snow. But I remember the man with the truck, lugging huge blocks of ice to peoples' back porches.
We also had an egg man who came every Saturday morning. My mom would leave the 35 cents or whatever inside the screen door, and there would be eggs the next day. We had a great dog back then who thought it was his duty to carry the eggs, one by one, from the front door into the living room, and deposit them on the rug. He had such a soft mouth he never broke a single one.Then, of course, there was the Fuller Brush Man, who came maybe once a year, and occasionally the Seminloe Indians, with the back yard furniture they made in Florida, that they sold across the country.

 

[Tomasso]

Speaking of the Iceman

Was there one more famous than Red Grange.

 

[Miss sofia]

How cool is that, the old style Benny hill milkman's coat i haven't seen one for years! We have a milkman who delivers although i don't use him and a greengrocer and our local independent supermarket still does home deliveries. My village is famous for being quaint and historic and they like to keep these old traditions going which is great.

 

[davestlouis]

We have Oberweis dairy too, but they are frightfully expensive even in stores, I imagine home delivery would cost a bundle. The Schwans truck will make home deliveries too, all sorts of frozen goodies...not cheap but good stuff.
www.schwans.com

I haven't heard or seen an icecream truck all summer in my subdivision, wonder where they all went.

 

[Big Man]

... I haven't heard or seen an icecream truck all summer in my subdivision, wonder where they all went.

The ice cream truck, how could I have forgotten about that. The ice cream truck used to make its rounds where my grandmother lived. Growing up, I spent most of my summers there and always looked forward to hearing the music playing that signaled the arrival of the ice cream truck. The area didn't have streets, but was on the highway. The truck would stop in the middle of the road and you'd go out and get what you wanted. No one ever gave a thought about being run over.

Man, those really were the "good old days".

 

[Wally_Hood]

Not quite home delivery, but I remember the Helm's Bakery truck visiting our neighborhood. Mother would buy bread, rolls, and so on. I could pick out a doughnut from the long trays that the driver would pull out from the back.

 

[MisterCairo]

Growing up in the 70s and 80s we had home milk delivery and dry cleaning pick up and delivery in Burlington, Ontario. We even had a city transit service called "Dial-a-Bus" where you called the transit service like a cab, and a small bus came to your door to pick you up!

 

[Tomasso]

We even had a city transit service called "Dial-a-Bus" where you called the transit service like a cab, and a small bus came to your door to pick you up!

For the same fare as a regular city bus?

 

[Lillemor]

At the same time in the 70s when my parents were shopping in supermarkets, some rural areas such as where my husband grew up, could still have milk delivered. They had catalogue clothes shopping over 2-3 decades before the rest of us.

I remember being fascinated with this giant ice "cube" tong my dad had. We get a fish truck and a cheese truck that parks outside of one of our supermarkets on specific days of the week. Not home delivery but pretty nice anyway. Better selection, better service, better quality, better price.

 

[davestlouis]

The Schwans sales guys must be having a bad year...I'm starting to see them parked on vacant lots, with big "SALE" banners out, selling frozen foods off the back of the truck.

Around here we also have the infamous meat trucks...small pickups with freezer chests lashed down in the bed. The salesmen are invariably young, and their pitch is that they supply local restaurants, and had an overstock that they are selling cheap, direct to the public...rriigghhtt.

 

[LizzieMaine]

The truck guys we have here all sell fresh sea food at the side of the road, at prices that would astonish those of you who shell out big bucks at fancy restaurants. They're all rusty old Fords with hand painted signs on the side:

SHELL FISH
SHRIMPS
CRAB MEAT
LOBSTER

NO CREDIT CARDS
FOOD STAMPS EXCEPTED