The Oseetah Dairy in Ray Brook was operated by Henry Hollis from 1946 until the 1960s. Oseetah supplied dairy products to patients at the State Hospital at Ray Brook.
The family of Howard Riley lived on the farm.
Adirondack Daily Enterprise, Saturday, April 7, 2007
You know What…?
By Howard Riley
[…]
My brother Ray worked the hardest on our farm because he was the oldest. Then in his late teens, he worked at the Oseetah Dairy in Ray Brook when we lived there, and he continued to work there after we left.
In the early 1940s, milking machines had been installed there at Ray Brook. But Ray recalled that, as an experiment, the owner decided they could produce more milk if they milked the cows three times a day rather than twice and milked them by hand rather then by machine. So my brother and the five guys who worked there with him were milking 72 Holsteins three times a day.
Now, every milk cow has four teats on her bag, and it is not easy to learn how to milk ... so imagine the pulling and squeezing to milk 12 cows three times a day, day after day, when one big Holstein might give 12 quarts to a milking. Those big pails the farmers clamped between their knees when they sat down on those three-legged milking stools held 12 quarts. Those boys developed a pretty good grip, ya think?
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