Blast from the Past

Aug 10, 2023

Picking up where I left off last week, I mentioned that I had found additional newspaper clippings and information about Reeder Brothers Dairy. So, without further ado, did you know that Reeder Brothers Dairy was featured on the Shippensburg Coin Club’s series of medals depicting actual scenes of Shippensburg merchants around the turn of the century?

According to a newspaper clipping from the News-Chronicle dated May 2, 1975, the 12th annual Coin and Antique Show sponsored by the Shippensburg Coin Club was being held at the Shippensburg Community Center on May 3 and 4. The show unveiled the next medal in the series which featured the likeness of David I. Reeder and his milk delivery wagon. The first commemorative medal issued in 1973 featured the likeness of Had Walters and his peanut wagon, and the second medal featured Edward D. Walters and his vegetable vending wagon.

The stamping on the current medal was taken from a photograph dating back to around 1908 and shows David Reeder and 10-year-old Park D. Freidinger standing beside Reeders milk delivery wagon in front of the Phillips Building on East Garfield Street. The late Charles Pague lent the photo to the Coin Club to make the medal.

This article posed a few questions in my mind…apparently the Shippensburg Coin Club had a good membership having been hosting the show for 12 years; does the club still exist? As far as the photo itself, where was the Phillips Building on East Garfield Street and what significance did it have in the community? Why was it called the Phillips Building? Lastly, I’ve never seen or heard of this series of medals; does anyone have any recollections of such coins, or does the Shippensburg History Center have any of them or possibly the series itself? I would be very interested to see them if they are in existence somewhere!

In another newspaper article dated September 4, 1951, the sale of Reeder Brothers Dairy to Miller-Reed Dairy is talked about. “The dairy that began business nearly half a century ago when milk was ladled into the customer’s own container Saturday became the property of the Miller-Reed Dairy. In announcing the sale, Reeder Brothers expressed satisfaction that the business could be kept in the community. The assets, equipment and routes are to be taken over by Miller-Reed, and Reeder Brothers employees will continue their old routes,” the article reads.

For the Reeder brothers, the sale culminated years in the dairy business which was conducted from the Dykeman Spring plant. Five years prior to the establishment of the dairy, the Reeder brothers’ father, the late William Reeder, sold milk from the farm near Scotland.

The article goes on to talk about some of the memories the Reeder brothers’ recalled from what they called ‘the old days’. For my generation and forward, those days today would be referred to as ‘the really old days, before our time!’ Some of the memories shared included that of rising at 2a.m. to start the milk route, horse drawn wagons and milk that sold for six cents per quart, and hand-skimmed cream that sold for 14 cents a quart. I know the milk man was a big deal in my early years of existence, although I don’t remember him, and milk that sold for only six cents per quart...WOW! I can only imagine back then that six cents was a lot of money, and compared to what we pay today for a quart of milk…holy cow how times have changed!

“All you needed to start in business in the early days were a few cans, a pair of horses and a wagon,” David Reeder recalled. He said nearly every farmer in the area at one time or another would start a “dairy” in the spring, but soon give up on the venture. Reeder noted one of the most amusing parts of the business was the team of horses that would go from one side of the streets to the other to make deliveries. “They soon learned the new customers on the route,” he noted in the article. He also said the dogs and cats in the neighborhood were very aware of the milkman's coming, and unless a housewife who had placed her milk container on the porch was prompt, she would be out about half of what was actually delivered!.

Stories like these are very interesting and yes, quite amusing. For those the same age as myself, it doesn’t take too much imagination or to form a picture in our minds of days gone by. For those younger than myself, images of horse drawn wagons delivering milk, milk being delivered in bottles to your door, hand skimmed cream, and kerosene fired lights on the streets that provided a pathway for the milkman to deliver his goods, I can imagine would be hard to grasp. But hey, it really did happen…and yes, they really were ‘the good ole days!”

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