Park Region Echo

Era of home-milk delivery here ends with Fred Chan's retirement
By Dennis Dalman

One of the definitions of a neighborly neighborhood is (or used to be, anyway) the clinkety-clank of milk bottles delivered to doorsteps in the crisp morning air by a smiling milkman.

Over the years, glass bottles gave way to plastic-coated cardboard containers.

And nowadays, even the smiling milkman is a fading memory.

Throughout Alexandria this month, many people are mourning the end of a tradition. Their friendly, smiling milkman -- Fred Chan -- is retiring at the end of March.

When Chan retires, an era will end -- the era of home milk delivery. Carlson Dairy will end its home routes the day that Chan retires -- March 31st.

Just mention Fred Chan's name and people's faces glow like a fresh bottle of milk. Fond smiles and a flood of memories emerge. Heartfelt praises pour out.

"Boy, we're gonna miss him." 

"I don't know what I'll do without him."

"He's the best. The most wonderful man. Gee, we'll miss him."

Chan, 62, has delivered milk to Alexandrians' doorsteps and refrigerators for 32 years.

Born in Pope County, he graduated from Glenwood High School and got a job at a Lowry dairy, picking up cans of cream at farms and bringing them back to the dairy to be made into butter.

In 1942, he was drafted into the army and spent most of his tour of duty in Iran, India and on the Burma Road into China.

After the service, he went back to the Lowry creamery. He married Jeanette Craig of Pope County, and they moved to North Dakota. Jeanette didn't like North Dakota, and so they moved back to Minnesota -- to Alexandria.

He worked for the North American Creamery in Alexandria. One day Fred Carlson of Alexandria's Carlson Dairy called Chan and asked him if he wanted to work for Carlson's.

Chan said yes and was hired. Last Wednesday was the 32nd anniversary of the day he was hired.

He's been delivering milk ever since from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. each weekday -- long hours that allow for his quick visits and chats with his customers.

"Freddie," those customers will tell you, is not only a milkman. He's an amateur appliance repairman, an opener of bottles, a grand storyteller, a reader to the blind, a babysitter, a watchdog and a friend.

"He's nicer than just an ordinary milkman," remarked Harriet LeRoy of Douglas Street. "He helps you forget about your troubles."

Chan fixed a washing machine wringer for her 17 years ago, she recalled. The wringer went haywire while Chan was delivering milk. No problem, Freddie said. He stopped and fixed it.

And he also opened bottlecaps for LeRoy.

"He's opened more bottlecaps than I can count." she said Wednesday. "those newfangled bottlecaps, like asprin and liquid plumber and such, I can't open them at all. So I just left them on the table.for Freddie, He had trouble with them, too, but he always managed to open them>"

Ruth Scott of Ash Street is nearly 100 percent blind. Chan has read her mail to her for years. He also read "just anything at all," said Scott, including such printed material as cake mix directions and news stories.

"Anything I can't see, he reads to me," she noted. "He even helped me find my glasses once. He looked all over the house until he found them. I don't know what I'm going to do without him. He's very lovely. He's a wonderful guy."

Suzie Trumm, who used to live along Chan's route, recalled Chan's energy and sociability.

"He loved to visit, and he was always in a hurry," said Trumm. "Hurry, scurry! When he left the milk truck, he ran to the house and back to the truck. But he would visit frequently, sit down for coffee. He loved to visit so much that I think that's shy he hurried, to make up time in between visits."

Trumm's neighbors would good-naturedly kid her about Chan.

"They would tell me that the milk truck was parked outside my house way too long," she recalled, laughing. 

She, her husband and children all miss Chan's morning visits. Trumm noted.

"When we moved to Lake Carlos, we lost Freddie the milkman," she said. "that was one of the saddest things about moving -- we lost Freddie."

Chan enjoys his customers as much as they enjoyed him. That's clear to see if you accompany Chan on one of his milk routes.

Wednesday morning, he delivered milk and other dairy products to the senior citizens in the Viking Towers apartments.

About one dozen ladies waited for Freddie in the basement of the high rise, greeting him with smiles and jokes and small talk when he stepped out of his truck and hauled in the cases of dairy products.

The ladies picked and chose among the cases of products.

"That's two percent milk there, isn't it , Freddie?"

"I've got to get some buttermilk for Anna. She's not feeling well today. Say, Freddie, where's the buttermilk?"

"Want a cup of coffee, Freddie?"

"No, no," said Chan, as he counted change. "No, thanks. Had some just this morning,. Maybe next time, okay?'

One of the ladies -- Lillian Holmgen -- worked with Chan in the North American Dairy 33 years ago. She greeted him warmly.

"He's an unusual milkman," she remarked. "He's always doing little favors for everybody. People leave little notes saying 'Please do this and please do that.' And Freddie does it. It's those little extra touches that make him so special."

Chan hopped back into his truck and reminisced, and talking animatedly with lots of gestures.

"I never had a customer I didn't like, not a one," he said. "They've been so nice..They gave me presents and boxes of candy. One year I got 40 boxes of candy and cash gifts, besides. And homemade goodies, lots o them."

Chan recalled a humorous occurrence that happened many years ago.

While entering a house one morning, he heard the phone ringing. As he walked across the kitchen to the refrigerator. "Something" told him to say "GOOD MORNING" very loudly. That "something" he had sensed was the naked lady of the house, running across the floor to answer the phone.

"She was embarrassed, and I was embarrassed," recalled Chan. "Next time I saw her, she didn't mention it and I didn't either, of course, but I was still embarrassed. And I suppose she was to, but she didn't let on."

Chan also recalled two tragic times on the route. One time, while backing out of a driveway of a home across from the courthouse, he looked careflly as he backed up and suddenly heard a child's cry. Terrified, his heart sinking, he applied the brakes and jumped out of the truck.

A young boy on a tricycle had been partly caught under a back wheel. He was rushed to the hospital with some internal injuries, but he recovered fully.

"It wasn't my fault, the police verified that, but I kept on feeling terrible. I kept visiting the kid in the hospital, and I just felt awful. It was so close ... It makes you think."

Another tragedy occurred while Chan was accompanying a student milkman on his route. The young man was a superb basketball player. While carrying a basket of eight glass bottles up some steps, the man stumbled, the bottles broke and his hand came down full force on the broken glass. His tendons and arteries in his wrist were severed. His hopes for  basketball career suddenly ended.

It's the pleasant times and the happy people that Chan remembers best, however.

"I'm going to miss it," he said, "but I've got to start slowing down. I'll help my wife with her upholstery business."

Editor's Note:  Freddie grew up in Lowry. He, and four of his brothers, served in World War II. His brother, Dave, stayed at home on a deferment, and ran Chan's Cafe -- it had the only pool table in town, but, of course, we kids could not go in and play as the Cafe sold beer. Dave was our milk man before the War. I had a dog by the name of Jiggs. Jiggs was very protective of the neighborhood and would nip at people who did not reside in the area. On of the nipers was Freddie. He finally got sick of being the niper and suggested that either Jiggs goes or delivery to the neighborhood would go. Freddie won.

Submitted by Doris Hoplin

Pope County Tribune
December 2, 1982

A LOOK BACK IN HISTORY
Old Lowry Roller Mills burned to the ground in 1937

(Editor's Note: Perhaps the biggest fire in the history of Lowry occurred Feb. 27, 1937, when the well-known Lowry Roller Mills burned to the ground. The following remembrance of that fire comes from Lowry native Roy L. Robieson, now a U.S. government engineering advisor working in Cairo, Egypt. Robinson is the son of the late Mr. and Mrs. James Robieson. The Robieson family lived with his family above the depot where James Robieson was Soo Line station agent and telegrapher for many years. Robieson is the brother of Mrs. Donald Hoplin of Glenwood and Mrs.Bob Bennett of Lowry.)

The Lowry Roller Mills was a regionally famous institution during the early part of this century. I don't know when it was built, perhaps before the turn of the century, but it was a formidable, white, wood frame structure located in the northern part of town, not far from the railroad depot.

The mill was about 50 feet high and counting lean-tos and outbuildings, it must have covered nearly an acre of ground. It housed unbelievable machinery; shafts, pulleys, belts, flywheels, grain sifters, elevating buckets and whatnot, all driven by a master diesel engine. More than once that engine scared the devil out of me when it backfired during its start-up process. Diesels were hard to start in those days and a backfire, followed by a huge cloud of smoke, could be heard and seen from all around the town.

I recall that the floors of the mill were polished smooth, no doubt from the friction of the countless, heavy bags of grain that were dragged over them year after year.

Lowry Roller Mills brought choice, locally-grown wheat and refined it into excellent flour that became widely renowned for its quality. The flour was shipped by rail to many far-flung distribution centers and was trucked by the mill's big "White" truck to regional areas in central Minnesota. I am told that the Glenwood Bakery used 30 sacks of white, Lowry Roller Mills four every day during the 1920s.

The "Mill Truck" with its green-painted, wooden box was garaged overnight in a lean-to on the north side of the mill. the truck was always backed into the garage. I suppose the truck being so long for its day, it would create a traffic hazard if it were backed out of the garage into the Main street of Lowry. Strange though, I don't recall any fast and heavy traffic on Lowry's pot-holed, graveled, main street, vintage 1937. More than likely, backing the truck into the garage posed a challenge to the driver that could not be resisted or was it done so that a quick get-away would be possible in case of fire?

The mill directly supported four prominent families in Lowry and provided a market for thousands of bushels of red wheat grown in the nearby area. Double-boxes of wheat, pulled by teams o horses, were often seen lined up at the mill, waiting to be off-loaded.

Someone returning to Lowry after attending, perhaps a dance, at Kensington on a cold Friday night in Feb. 1937, noted a fire in the lower reaches of the mill. He sounded the fire alarm and the Lowry volunteer fire fighters responded, but by that time the fire had jumped to the upper part of the structure. The water tower and modern fire-fighting equipment were still just a gleam in the eye of the village council then and the old town hall fire pumper wouldn't throw a great volume of water 50 feet height.

An emergency call for help was rushed to the Glenwood fire fighters but when they arrived the fire was out of control (new highway 55 was not completed at that time). Fortunately, the wind that night was light -- northwest about 10 miles per hour. It was strong enough, though, to carry flaming embers, generated by the fire and hurled aloft by the vicious thermal currents, more than one-half mile.

The whole town was quickly aroused to the spectre. The mill was a goner, that was sure, but could any of the nearby wood structures be saved? Two restaurants across main street from the mill were in peril and no hope was held for a four-plex apartment house just 100 feet downwind. The families living within quickly moved all their possessions outside.

The two fire-fighting groups, united under the direction of the Glenwood fire chief, knowing that the mill was lost, re-directed their efforts toward saving nearby structures. Unbelievable! They were 100 per cent successful in that effort. Except for the mill and its adjacent machine shop, no other structure was lost. A fire did start in the basement of Kasper's store nearby but Bob Kasper was alert to the possible danger and quickly extinguished the fire.

I was nearly 10 years old when this event took place The railroad depot, where we lived, was upwind so it was not threatened. we, (my mother, my younger sisters and I), watched the fire in awe from our kitchen window. Two of my older brothers were busy, stationed on downwind roofs, throwing off burning embers carried there by the wind. My oldest brother faced real trouble. His wood-framed  restaurant (and combined apartment home) was just across the main street from the mill. He claimed that water, sprayed onto his building from the fire hoses, sizzled because the sheet metal facing of the building was so hot, and candy bars in the showcase near the front of the building melted from the heat of the fire. The plate glass windows on the front of his restaurant were cracked by the heat..

Had my brother's restaurant burned, without doubt, the adjacent post office, meat market and hardware store would have followed

"I don't remember what happened to the old "Mill Truck."

Submitted by Doris Hoplin

Pope County Tribune
March 24, 1986

Yardsticks are collectables to man
by Jeanne Olson
Tribune Staff Writer

Unless they collect paintings, most people don 't decorate their walls with their collections. But Don Hoplin has a unique collection of yardsticks with which he has covered the walls of his workroom, making it appear to be almost like a museum of past and present business advertising.

Most of the advertising is tasteful and truthful, since there isn't room on a yardstick for much more than the store's name, address and telephone number. The telephone numbers really date some of the sticks.

"That's an old, old one," Hoplin pointed. It said, 'Glenwood Furniture. Phone 181.' "Quite a few of these businesses are gone or have changed hands."

One business that has changed hands, and which he'd love to get ahold of a yardstick from is Hoplin Nelson Hardware. "My Dad and my uncle started Hoplin Nelson Hardware in Lowry in 1916, and through the years they gave away thousands of the yardsticks." he said. "I never got one." It leaves a big gap in his collection. His brother Glen sold the store not long ago to Dave and Shirley Mork.

He has one from Hoplin Hardware Company of Brandon -- he ran that store himself from 1950 to 1958.

Many of the yardsticks actually are from hardware stores. Maybe that's because yardsticks are a natural commodity in hardware stores. He has one from Kensington Hardware, from when it was owned by Otto Hovren, and one from Anderson Hardware, which was the store's name after it was Callaghan's Hardware. He has a Haldorson Hardware's yardstick and Keacher's Coast to Coast. That one came after George and Alma Ahlers' Coast to Coast, which he also has.

There's one from the Park Region Echo, which merged with the Lake Region Press in 1969 to publish a bi-weekly newspaper in Alexandria. Before that, both newspapers had been published once a week.

Friends have brought him yardsticks from other places in the country, such as from the Calico Trunk in Lewistown, Mont. They blend in nicely with the rest of the yardsticks. 

While most of the yardsticks are actually three feet long, some of them are four feet long and others are just 24 inches. There's a place for all of them in Hoplin's workroom.

"This collection just evolved,' said Hoplin, who comes from a collection-oriented family.

His wife, Doris, has stated collections for their grandchildren, and she has a few of her own. The kids get the usual grandma- and grandpa-type gifts, but she makes sure they get a little something to add to their collections too.

"The clothes they'll grow out of, but this way they'll have something they can keep for a long time," she said. "I hope they like the collections. They probably will, their parents like them."

Hoplin mentioned a small collection of cap guns that he started just by accident. He had a couple of the toys in a drawer and when he had another one he just added it to the others.

"After all," he asked, "what's a collection? A collection is nothing more than two or more of something."

Submitted by Doris Hoplin

THE MEANING OF "UFF DA" 

Uff Da is not in the dictionary, but for many Scandinavians, it is an all-purpose expression covering a variety of situations such as: 

Uff Da is ... looking in the mirror and discovering ... you're not getting better, you're just getting older. 

Uff Da is ... trying to dance the polka to rock and roll music. 

Uff Da is ... losing your wad of gum in the chicken yard. 

Uff Da is ... eating hot soup when you've got a runny nose. 

Uff Da is ... waking yourself up in church with your own snoring. 

Uff Da is ... sneezing so hard that your false teeth end up in the bread plate. 

Uff Da is ... walking way downtown and then trying to remember what you wanted. 

Uff Da is ... getting swished in the face with a cow's wet tail. 

Uff Da is ... trying to pour two buckets of manure into one bucket. 

Uff Da is ... eating a delicious sandwich and then discovering the spread is cat food. 

Uff Da is ... arriving late at a lutefisk supper and getting served minced ham instead. 

Uff Da is ... when your two "steady" girl friends find out about each other. 

Uff Da is ... trying to look at yourself in the mirror January 1st. 

Uff Da is ... looking in your rear view mirror and seeing flashing red lights. 

Uff Da is ... the same as Charlie Brown's "Good Grief." 

Uff Da is ... pushing the light switch and suddenly remembering you forgot to pay the electric bill. 

Uff Da is ... opening up the latest real estate tax bill. 

Uff Da is ... noticing non-Norwegians at a church dinner using lefse for a napkin. 

Uff Da is ... watching what dogs do to lutefisk piled up in front of the butcher shop. 

Uff Da is ... not being Scandinavian.

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An excerpt from a 1950s High School Home Economics Textbook

Have dinner ready. Plan ahead, even the night before, to have a delicious meal on time. This is a way of letting him know you have been thinking about him and are concerned about his needs. Most men are hungry when they come home and the prospect of a good meal is part of the warm welcome needed.

Prepare yourself. Take fifteen minutes to rest so that you will be refreshed when he arrives. Touch up your make-up, put a ribbon in your hair and be fresh looking. He has just been with a lot of work weary people. Be a little gay and a little more refreshing. His boring day may need a lift.

Clear away the clutter. Make one last trip through the main part of the house just before your husband arrives, gathering up the school books, toys, paper, etc. Then run a dust cloth over the tables. Your husband will feel he has reached his haven of rest and order and it will give you a lift too.

Prepare the children. Take a few minutes to wash the children's hands and face (if they are small), comb their hair, and if necessary, change their clothes. They are little treasurers and he would like to see them playing their part.

Minimize all noise. At the time of his arrival, eliminate all noise of the washer, dryer, dishwasher or vacuum. Try to encourage the children to be quite. Be happy to see him. Greet him with a warm smile and be glad to see him.

Make him comfortable. Have him lean back in a comfortable chair or suggest that he lie down in the bedroom. Have a cool/warm drink ready for him. Arrange his pillow and offer to take off his shoes. Speak in a low, soft, soothing and pleasant voice. Allow him to relax and unwind.

Listen to him. You may have a dozen things to tell him, but the moment of his arrival is not the time. Let him talk first.

Make the evening his. Never complain if he does not take you out to dinner or out to other pleasant entertainment. Instead, try to understand his world of strain and pressure, his need to unwind and relax.

Some don'ts: don't greet him with problems or complaints. Don't complain if he is late for dinner. Count this as a minor compared to what he might have gone through this day.

The goal: try to make your home a place of peace and order while your husband can relax in body and spirit.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Do you girls of the 40s and 50s remember this?

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a.. all the girls had ugly gym uniforms?
b.. it took five minutes for the TV warm up?
c.. nearly everyone's Mom was at home when the kids got home from school?
d.. nobody owned a purebred dog?
e.. when a quarter was a decent allowance?
f.. you'd reach into a muddy gutter for a penny?
g. your Mom wore nylons that came in two pieces?
h.. all your male teachers wore neckties and female teachers had their hair done every day and wore high heels?
i.. you got your windshield cleaned, oil checked, and gas pumped, without asking, all for free, every time? And you didn't pay for air? And, you got trading stamps to boot?
j.. laundry detergent had free glasses, dishes or towels hidden inside the box?
k.. it was considered a great privilege to be taken out to dinner at a real restaurant with your parents?
l.. they threatened to keep kids back a grade if they failed . ..and they did?
m.. when a 57 Chevy was everyone's dream car...to cruise, peel out, lay rubber or watch submarine races, and people went steady?
n.. no one ever asked where the car keys were because they were always in the car, in the ignition, and the doors were never locked?
o.. lying on your back in the grass with your friends and saying things like "That cloud looks like a .", and playing baseball with no adults to help kids with the rules of the game?
p.. stuff from the store came without safety caps and hermetic seals because no one had yet tried to poison a perfect stranger?
q.. And with all our progress...........don't you just wish, just once, you could slip back in time and savor the slower pace............and share it with the children of today?
r.. When being sent to the principal's office was nothing compared to the fate that awaited the student at home? Basically we were in fear for our lives, but it wasn't because of drive-by shootings, drugs, gangs, etc. Our parents and grandparents were a much bigger threat! But we survived because their love was greater than the threat.

Send this on to someone who can still remember Nancy Drew, the Hardy Boys, Laurel and Hardy, Howdy Dowdy and the Peanut Gallery, the Lone Ranger, The Shadow Knows, Nellie Bell, Roy and Dale, Trigger and Buttermilk. As well as summers filled with bike rides, baseball games, bowling and visits to the pool, ............ and eating Kool-Aid powder with sugar.

a.. Candy cigarettes
b.. Wax Coke-shaped bottles with colored sugar water inside
c.. Soda pop machines that dispensed glass bottles
d.. Coffee shops with tableside jukeboxes
e.. Blackjack, Clove and Teaberry chewing gum
f.. Home milk delivery in glass bottles with cardboard stoppers
g.. Party lines (Phones)
h.. Newsreels before the movie
i.. P.F. Fliers
j.. Telephone numbers with a word prefix....(Raymond 4-601).
k.. Peashooters
i.. Howdy Dowdy
m.. 45 RPM records
n.. Green Stamps
o.. Hi-Fi's
p.. Metal ice cubes trays with levers
q.. Mimeograph paper
r.. Beanie and Cecil
s.. Roller-skate keys
t.. Cork pop guns
u.. Drive ins
v.. Studebakers
w.. Washtub wringers
x.. The Fuller Brush Man
y.. Reel-To-Reel tape recorders
z.. Tinkertoys
aa.. Erector Sets
ab.. The Fort Apache Play Set
ac..Lincoln Logs
ad.. 15 cent McDonald hamburgers
ae.. 5 cent packs of baseball cards..........with that awful pink slab of bubble gum
af..Penny candy
ag.. 18 or 35 cent a gallon gasoline
ah.. Jiffy Pop popcorn