A Swedish Immigrant Built Seattle's Clean-Milk Dairy One Gallon of Cream at a Time

I was born in a dairying community of Sweden, which, you may know, is one of the most progressive of all countries in that industry. Following the usual custom of the sons of well-to-do farmers, I took a course at an agricultural and dairy college after finishing school. Even at that time, so many years ago, we were taught concerning the care of cows and milk — that which is only beginning to be practiced by the more progressive farmers in this country.

During our short residence in Seattle when we first came to this State, nearly fourteen years ago, we learned from annoying experience that in most of the dairy products procurable at that time, quality — the great essential — was lacking. On one occasion my wife wished to entertain friends, and engaged cream of her milkman many days in advance. In the interim she daily sought to impress upon him the importance to her of having the cream of the finest and heaviest quality. She offered to pay twice the price of ordinary cream, and did pay it. But when the day arrived the cake with "almond cream filling" had to be hastily renamed to match a substitute filling; and the "whipped cream" for the coffee was an empty, very empty dream!

Several months later our oldest boy was born, and for a few days we faced the possibility of having to find a substitute for his natural food. Happily, this catastrophe was averted, but the anxiety of those days, while we searched vainly for cow's milk which we would dare feed him, left a lasting impression with us.

However, we were in distant rural districts of the State for a few years before coming back to Seattle and actually engaging in our long-cherished plans of catering direct to the dairy needs of Seattle. In this my wife has been my enthusiastic co-worker, especially in all that pertained to "pure food for the babies." We made purity and quality our watchwords from the very first.

Our ideals and our belief in the possibility of attaining them tided us over many weary discouragements. It is difficult for a new business, however worthy, to gain a foothold in an eager, pushing city; but a business which is built slowly and perseveringly upon merit alone stands upon a firm foundation.

Beginning with only a few private customers, we prepared fancy dessert cream. I early discovered that the general public was surprisingly ignorant of the food value and culinary possibilities of a really good cream. At once I began the somewhat ambitious undertaking of educating it along this line, both by circulating simple recipes and instructions, and, when opportunity offered, demonstrating in kitchens the artistic as well as the every-day possibilities of cream.

Personally, I believe in cream thoroughly, as an important and even necessary article of diet. It is much more easily and quickly digested than the heavy animal fats so much used in our kitchens, and can and should, to a large extent, take the place of them. It is with much gratification that I see people using gallons of cream where at that time they grudgingly used half-pints.

As soon as possible I prepared and sold my now well-known pasteurized milk for babies and invalids; and that, in time, won hearty appreciation. I have read and studied much on these subjects and carried on original research and experimenting as well. I keep in touch with the most advanced thought on all dairy subjects, and strive to constantly improve the output of my dairy. I have never believed in chemical preservatives, even of the simplest sort, and have never used them, and never shall; for I know no reason why I should, even if they were perfectly harmless. Science will always direct us along practical, clean and wholesome paths if we heed its teachings.

"Four-fifths of the diseases among infants is traceable directly to impure, adulterated, or infected milk. There is no medium for the transmission of disease equal to the milk supply, and it is to the interest of every householder to guard most carefully the health of his family by insisting that the milk used shall come from a pure, clean, wholesome source." — Dr. G. B. McCullough, the leading specialist in infant and child diseases in Seattle.

"The milk supplied by the Kristoferson Dairy is, we consider, the best supplied by any dairy in the city of Seattle. We firmly believe that the best insurance against disease is the pasteurization of milk, which destroys disease germs. We have inspected both the supply of milk in this dairy and the pasteurizing plant in this city, and are greatly pleased with the manner in which they are conducted." — Dr. Ludlow, City Health Officer.

"I cheerfully endorse the methods of the Kristoferson Dairy in the careful preparation and pasteurization of milk, and recommend it to my patients as being the most healthful of any to be obtained in the city." — Robert M. Stith, M.D.

At Stanford University, California, one of the greatest institutions of learning in America, typhoid fever broke out last spring in the form of an epidemic, and within a short time there were 129 cases reported. The editor of The Ranch was in San Francisco at the time, and in order to get at the facts made a personal visit to the University. He found by investigation that in every case the sufferer of the disease had been using the milk of a Portuguese dairyman who kept his quarters in a filthy condition. Of those taken ill, twenty-four died, and the cost of treatment for the patients aggregated in the neighborhood of $75,000. It is impossible for such an epidemic to be spread through milk that has been pasteurized.