I think that a good number of folks in middle Lawrence made their living, one way or another, from the Carnation plant. One of my uncles, Will Jackson, and a great-uncle, Emery Stearns, drove milk pickup routes. Emery was honored at retirement for being the longest tenured employee of Carnation in the U.S. -- 45 years. He went to work there, along with his father, Loren, and brothers, Bill and Albert, in 1924. I'm told that this is the year it opened. Emery and his brothers also had dairy cattle and sold their milk to Carnation. My fondest recollection of Carnation is not the dairy, but the soda pop bottling plant. Carnation developed their own flavors, mixed, bottled and distributed regionally under the Carnation brand. My great-aunt, Katherine Orr Jackson, remembers her uncle, Henry Orr, developing new flavors and "trying them out" with her. They bottled every flavor you can imagine, including an incredible Bitter Lemon, a dark Cream with a heavenly flavor, fruit and berry flavors and root beer. These came in small (10 oz., perhaps?) bottles. The bottles were all the same; embossed with the Carnation logo and type. You had to look at the bottlecap to identify the flavor. They also franchised a lemon-lime brand, Ski, which came in its own bottle. I remember drinking Carnation in my Granddad Jackson's store in Stotts City as recently as the early 1970s. I don't know when they quit bottling; my Granddad retired in 1975 and that was the last I ever saw of Carnation Soda Pop. I'm not sure what caused the demise of the Carnation dairy plant, but I suppose that it was the eventual dissolution of the dairy farm industry. For years, the dairy production of southwest Missouri burgeoned until it rivaled Wisconsin. The profits, however, turned out to be in beef; by the mid 1960s, farmers had switched from Jersey and Gurnsey to Black Angus and Charolais. -----Original Message----- From: Jean Mayfield Cuevas <jmayfield@jps.net> To: MOLAWREN-L@rootsweb.com <MOLAWREN-L@rootsweb.com> Date: Sunday, May 21, 2000 10:26 AM Subject: Re: [MOLAWREN-L] irridiated foods -- 1941 >Dale, > >My mom's brother worked for the Mt. Vernon Carnation plant all his >life. I can still recall a black and white photo that she had of the >entire staff, not sure when it was taken, but maybe 50's or 60's. > >Jean Cuevas > > > > >At 10:49 AM 5/17/00 -0400, you wrote: >>I do not know if Carnation Milk is still prepared as it was in 1941 with >>respect to the ultra-violet (UV) light radiation. However, the basic process >>is probably still used. Carnation Condensed Milk is prepared by homogenizing >>to break up the butterfat particles and evaporating 50% of the contained >>water (they call it "cooking"). Vitamin D is added during this part of the >>process. The milk is (or at least for years it was) sealed in cans and then >>the canned milk is sterilized by passing through a steam heated chamber for >>a specified period of time at a specified temperature. >> >>The effect of UV light on certain organic chemical molecules has been known >>to chemists for years, and I am aware of recent research at a major U.S. >>chemical company in which UV light exposure was investigated as a means to >>break up an undesired impurity in an industrial chemical. UV light is >>emitted by the sun (that's what causes sunburn) and by artifical lighting. >>It is invisible to the naked eye. However, it is not a subatomic particle >>(i.e. not a particle from an atom) such as gamma, beta, etc. I am not >>familiar with the patent referenced and do not know the reason for the UV >>irradiation other than to surmise that one or more molecules in the milk >>would be changed to another chemical form much the same way heat can break >>down molecules. >> >>My knowledge on the Carnation Milk process is from working two summers in the >>condensary at Mt. Vernon while in college. >> >> Dale West >