CARL'S MILK CAN TOP

Posted by Carolyn Johnson Christensen, granddaughter of Carl O. and Gerda H. Hansen.

Look close, and you will see who owned this Milk Can.  I don't know about you, but I was excited when I first saw this.  It is in the possession of Carl Maurice Johnson, grandsson of Carl and Gerda, son of Maurice.

He told me that many years ago a neighbor, Arvil Millar, called him and Maurice and asked them to come over to his home.  He indicated he had been digging near a ditch, and this milk can top appeared.  When I heard this story, it reminded me that Carl and Gerda had farmed in several areas in Shelley, one being what some of us know as the Arvil Millar Farm, just past the old railroad tracks on the road going east out of Shelley. 

Another view of the milk can.  Seeing this brought back memories of one of my "jobs" as a daughter of Maurice.  It was my responsibility to get the milk can cart, hook each milk can in turn out by the hiway, and return the empty can to the barn in order for Dad to fill it again, to return to the roadside where it would be picked up by the milk company.  The cart looked like a handcart, without the bed, and instead, sporting a contraption that had a hook on it.  I would hook the cans by the handles and trudge from the highway to the barn  two or three times a day.  Of course, Dad took the full cans out to the road.