Published: March 27, 2009 09:26 pm      

Family quits milk delivery

COVINGTON, Ind. — For nearly three decades Jeff Dennis carried on the legacy of his late father and became known as “the milkman” in west central Indiana.

Rain or shine, and with little room for illness or vacation, he delivered dairy products to businesses, schools and homes in his refrigerated truck. But this year he made the difficult decision to sell the route that supported a family of six, laid the foundation for many friendships and became the source of many fond memories.

“I wanted to sell while the route was doing well,” Dennis said. “It was a good time to sell, and I was physically and emotionally ready. But it was a very traumatic decision to make, and I changed my mind several times.”

On a recent evening, Dennis and his wife, Diane, sat around the kitchen table in their house in Covington, reminiscing about the milk route as they flipped through a scrapbook chronicling the Dennis family’s three-generational foray into the dairy business. Dennis’ mother, Edith Davis, and sister, Cindy Brown, pitched in with their own memories and stories, going back to the time when Dennis’ grandfather, Garcie Dennis, picked up milk in 10-gallon cans from dairy farmers in the Covington and Veedersburg area.

Darrell Dennis – Dennis and Brown’s father – also did farm pickups until he bought a milk route in 1967 from what was then known as Producers Dairy. The siblings recalled helping him with the house-to-house deliveries while splurging on chocolate milk.

“Entertaining things always happened on the route,” said Brown. “Dad passed out free stuff all the time. If a skinny dog happened to walk by he’d dump out some cottage cheese for it.”

For 13 years, without taking any vacations or a single sick day, Darrell Dennis ran the route. Every morning from Monday through Saturday, he would get up at 3 a.m., pick up products from the dairy on the corner of South and Quincy streets in Danville, and deliver them to businesses and 300-plus homes on the other side of the state line. But his stint as milkman was cut short in the early morning of March 10, 1980, when he was killed in a head-on car crash in front of his home in Covington after making house-to-house deliveries.

With his father gone, Jeff Dennis decided to buy the route together with his brother-in-law, even though he had just graduated from Wabash College the year before and really didn’t have any aspirations to run the milk route.

“I thought I’d run the route until something better came up. I guess I just didn’t know when to quit,” Dennis said.

Contrary to what Dennis had initially believed, life as a milkman agreed with him, and he started expanding the route. Although the work was physical and, in Dennis’ words “relentless” at times, he never regretted his decision. “The route has done really well and it’s been a great living,” he said. “We had some tremendous people as customers, some for the entire time we had the route. They grew up with us and many became very close friends.”

Whereas the bulk of his father’s business had been house-to-house deliveries, Dennis picked up more and more deliveries to grocery stores, gas stations, schools, nursing homes and other businesses. Because it was too labor intensive and eventually became financially draining, Dennis stopped making house-to-house deliveries completely in 1992. With a few exceptions.

“There was this one older lady who lived by herself,” recalled Diane Dennis, “and we never had the heart to tell her that we had stopped making deliveries.”

She wasn’t the only elderly Covington residents for whom the weekly visit by the milkman or his wife to collect payments had become an eagerly awaited social event. “One lady was 102 years old, and I don’t think she had a lot of company,” Jeff Dennis said. “Once she told me, ‘You know, I rarely drink the milk you bring me but it’s so nice to have you stop by.’”

Chances are Dennis will always be known as “the milkman” in people’s minds, just like Diane Dennis for years has been known as “the milkman’s wife.” But at age 51, Dennis felt it was time to think about the future and make a change. “The thing that weighs on you the most is that you can’t get sick, because you don’t have any backup. If you have a hernia, or if there is snow way up high, you still have 40 stops to make that morning,” Dennis said.

The dairy business will continue to stay close to his heart, however, since Prairie Farms not only bought Dennis’ route but also offered him a job as a sales supervisor. While Dennis enjoys the perks of his new career, such as two weeks of vacation and spending more time with his kids Jenny, 33, Taylor and Katie, both 20, and Adam, 18, several drivers from Prairie Farms in Terre Haute now tend to his old customers.

“The route continues,” Dennis said.