Anthony's Pure Milk Company
Anthony's Pure Milk
delivery truck from 1937. Yes, Virginia, men
in uniforms would deliver clear glass bottles of milk to your front step
every morning in that now vanished time, and cart off your empty bottles. Those
bottles were very thick and quite difficult to break, so they could be
sterilized and reused. Lem Jones is the Anthony's milkman on
the left; the assistant on the right is unknown.
A cousin
born in 1934 wrote about Lem Jones:
"Although I can't picture Lem now in my mind, I do remember that ... he
worked at Anthony Milk, and I could stop by (it was close to our Fatherland Street
address) and he would give me chocolate milk. I could always recognize if the
milk was Anthony's and wouldn't drink anything else. Later, I learned that I "liked" cod
liver oil and that Anthony put cod liver oil in their milk. Funny the things
that you remember. "
Interesting, but I have no way now of confirming if Anthony's milk was ever "fortified" in
this manner (Lem Jones is since deceased). Might it be they were compelled to
stop using additives and thereafter became "Anthony's Pure Milk"?
- William W. Weems
Crate from Anthony's Pure Milk-Image
courtesy Allison
Anthony's Milk was established in 1927 and sold to Rock City Ice Cream in 1965.
