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Life is too short to eat bad food! Sharing great recipes, farm life, stories and photography from our Northern California dairy farm.

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July 19, 2010

Some Grossi Dairy History

I was at my mother-in-law, Annette's house down on the ranch the other day to collect some old photos she has saved digitally on her flash drive.  Annette is definitely the family Historian.  She has everything documented, saved on computer (and in her head), and whenever a new piece of information comes up, as it did when we were going through photos with my father-in-law, George, she documents it right on the spot.  When I asked her how she remembers everything - like what 3rd cousin belongs to what Great Aunt or Uncle, she told me that it did take her 40 years.  Okay, I don't feel so bad now.  I'm seven years into this family and I still get SO confused sometimes when we're talking about general family tree history....only 33 more years to go to get it all!

On the Grossi side of the family, Dominic's grandfather, George Sr. is one of 10 children.  He is the youngest (he's 89) and the last surviving sibling from his family.  He and all of his brothers and sisters grew up just down the street at what we call the 'Home Ranch',  the 800 acre ranch adjacent to ours, towards the west. 

I thought this was such a great photo!  'The Milkers'.  Seven of the ten Grossi kids in this photo standing with the milk machines.  The kids use to do all the milking.  Hmm, maybe that's why people had so many kids back then!



from left Mary, Jim, Domingo, Virginia, Henry, in front George (grandpa) and Helen Grossi

The photo was taken at the home ranch in 1927. I wonder if these milk machines were the newest and latest 'thing'.  I was actually surprised to see that they even had milk machines in 1927! I was envisioning milking by hand.

Hope you enjoyed part 1 of the Grossi dairy history.....more little tidbits to come.

Happy Monday!
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4 comments:

Ren- Lady Of The Arts said...

Great post!
I can't wait to see more of the Grossi history.

Tes said...

Beautiful post! I love this wonderful history.
Thanks for sharing,
Tes

Anonymous said...

My Dad had a daity in the early 50's and we used milkers that had to be emptyed into pails and carried to the milk house to pour into cans. We milked by hand until about that time and it was a big improvement when we got milkers. We still had a milk cooler that the milk cans sit in with ice cold water around them. The coolers would cool a watermelon in a very short time too.

Michael Mery said...

This is lots of fun. Just got a call from a grandson who spends summers in Inverness asking me the name of the stinging jellyfish he sees on Tomales Bay, esp. Shell Beach where he's taken swimming lessons. I ran search and your wonderful blog came up. I spent my childhood in Inverness, went to elementary school with Rich, son of Domingo. wonderful blog. which one is your ranch? great work! all the best,

Michael Mery
mmery@horizoncable.com