Thirty-one interested citizens, members of Morrison Historical Society, and its Board of Trustees, were undaunted by the 1:00 p.m. temperature of 9° on Sunday, January 20, 2019. They bundled up, boldly faced cold and ice, and enjoyed a potluck meal, Annual Meeting, and Goodenough Dairy program, at Morrison United Methodist Church, 200 W. Lincolnway, Morrison, IL.
Board President Harvey Zuidema shared work remembrances of Goodenough Dairy-to-door milk delivery and his later involvement in research and collecting Goodenough memorabilia. He is shown with a variety of bottle shapes, sizes, label colors, and caps used throughout the dairy’s 47-year enterprise, from 1924 to 1970. HISTORY
In 1959, when he was 20 and employed at Curtis Woodworks in Clinton, IA, he heard about the Arthur L. Good Enough Dairy (first spelled as two words), of Morrison. Zuidema became a “milkman” from 1959 to 1962, then, per his father’s request, farmed for 36 years.
A & D Electric, 520 W. Main and Heaton Streets
will describe his job delivering Goodenough Dairy products to stores and households in Albany, Erie, Garden Plain, and Hillsdale, IL. Many hours of research at Odell Public Library have prepared him for this informative presentation.
Zuidema owns a refurbished 1957 Divco (Detroit Industrial Vehicle Company) delivery truck. Locals are familiar with this vehicle, which is like ones Zuidema used as a Goodenough Dairy “milkman.” Trucks replaced horse-drawn wagons in the late 1940’s or early 50’s, he estimated. The deciding factor was when (INSERT DAIRY DRIVER’S NAME) horse-drawn wagon was hit from behind.
Because he traveled to several towns, he needed a refrigerated truck. Zuidema and Lester Renkes were the earliest drivers to load milk from the cooler, at 6:00 a.m. “We never kept records of what was taken to deliver or returned. I did the books, collected money, and turned it in to Mayor Tracey. [He] made out the bills to customers.” He noted that married employees could take home all the milk and ice cream they wanted. “I couldn’t do that, because I was single!”