October Meeting 2001 October 2001 Program
Taken from the Pawtuxet Valley Historian Volume 15 Issue 3

Our Speaker for the evening was Mr. Charles Perrino whose family operated the Perrino and Sons Dairy, which was incorporated in 1937 as the Cranston Farms Dairy, Inc., and was located on Reservoir Avenue where Garden City stands today. The business was stared in 1900 by Mr. Perrino's grandfather who gained his experience working on the family farm in Italy. The family consisted of a large extended family, which included grandparents and aunts and uncles.

They settled on West Exchange Street in Providence. They bought milk from a German neighbor who had a cow. He told Mr. Perrino that the family should buy their own cow since they drank so much milk. They did not have enough money but the neighbor offered to buy the cow and have Mr. Perrino repay him at 50 cents a week. People from Federal Hill started coming to the house with their buckets and they milked the cow themselves. In time the city passed an ordinance forbidding the keeping of livestock in residential areas of the city so Mr. Perrino hunted for a farm and ended up at the corner of Reservoir and Park Avenue. He borrowed $40.00 and purchased two more cows and a black horse. Within a year the business grew to 14 cows. That area became built up and people complained about the noise that the horse and wagon made as it passed along the cobblestone roads. So rubber pads were fitted over the horse hooves and rubber tires affixed the wagon. Soon that was not enough to appease the neighbors and the cows were sold to farmers in Western Cranston where milk was produced for the dairy under the dairy's supervision.

It was a difficult life. Mr. Perrino's grandfather harnessed his horse and loaded his wagon around midnight. He would fall asleep as soon as the horse headed out on Reservoir Avenue bound for Federal Hill. A lantern hung on the back of the wagon. When the horse got to the first stop he would kick the chaise and Mr. Perrino would wake up and start delivering the milk. When he came back to the wagon rattling the empty bottles in the milk carrier the horse would know that it was time to get on to the next stop. If a new customer were added to the route it would take a week to train the horse to make the stop. In the winter the dairy had big horse-drawn sleighs to go through the snow to Western Cranston to pick up the milk and bring it back to the dairy where it was bottled. To keep the milk from freezing, lanterns were placed between the cases, which were first covered with heavy quilts. The business was passed on from one generation to another. Through the years it grew to 18 trucks, employed 26 to 30 men and had a reputation in the dairy business of being second to none. By 1982 the "jug" stores such as Cumberland Farms had arrived and put a big crimp in the business. The family decided to sell to Hillside Dairy. Mr. Perrino remembers getting up at 2 a.m. to peddle milk with his uncle, then coming home and dressing for school. Many times he was dead tired and fell asleep at his desk. He joked that the best years of his life were spent in the Army where he thought he would get all the sleep he ever wanted but he laughed as he said, "it didn't work out that way." Close Window
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