Monday, July 25, 2011

If You Don't Own A Cow.....

"Cloverland Milk Truck" oil on board (16 x 20) 2004





Most Baltimoreans of a certain age can sing the Cloverland jingle including the phone number NOrth 9- 2222. This truck is from an earlier era when the bottling plant was on North Monroe street and the phone number was the Lafayette exchange. The building that housed that plant is still standing on that spot in NW Baltimore. You cannot miss it because it has a big milk bottle built right into the side of it.There are other relics of that era in plain sight if you just hunt around a bit for them.
The original Cloverland Dairy bottling plant on N. Monroe Street.


Divco truck painted in the authentic colors of the Cloverland dairy waiting to  be used as a movie prop.
 In polling Baltimoreans I question very few who cannot remember the name of the dairy that delivered milk to their homes. We had Royal Dunloggin Dairy and adored our milkman Mr. Ross. He was the only man besides my father to who my mother wrote notes. Sometimes after supper she would scribble a line or two on stationery and insert it into an empty, rinsed milk-bottle which would then be placed on the side porch. In the wee hours of the morning Mr. Ross would pull up in his Divco truck and hurry toward our house with his metal basket of half-gallon milk bottles. Then he would read the note which instructed him whether to leave us an unscheduled delivery of chocolate milk, orange juice or heavy whipping cream...or as the song says..."no milk today."

"Cloverland Crossing" oil on canvas (20" x 20") 2004

6 comments:

  1. Charlene,

    Another great painting ... well, paintings. I remember Cloverland well, although we were Greenspring Dairy people ... family connections and all that goes those connections, made it so. The same with Rice's Bakery.
    f.

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  2. Thanks for the compliments. Greenspring and Royal Dunloggin are Cloverland now... They are what we call The Royal Farm Store! Another family in Crabtown.

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  3. We had Mr. Al from Wilton Farm Dairy on Maisen Choice Lane in Catonsville.

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  4. All those milk men were very friendly and helpful. So many people such as you David remember not only the milk man but his name as well.

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  5. What movie was the Cloverland Divco truck in?

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