Give-away blotter for Garden Home Dairy.

The old Marugg hay barn, off of south Oleson Road, was the local hang-out for Garden Home kids in the 1930s and 1940s.  Hay bales could be pulled around and stacked into all sorts of forts and tunnels.  Joanne Day broke her leg falling out of the loft. Dean Day also fell out of a different area, bouncing off a shed below to land in the manure pile.  Mrs. Day had to hose him down before entering the house.

The Maruggs had the Garden Home Dairy, on the west side of Oleson Road near Skyhar Drive. Stanley Marugg has sent these wonderful photos and a brief story of the Marugg family.  We’ll add a few notes to his story for clarification:

Stanley’s father, Michael Marugg was 18 years old when he immigrated to the United States from Switzerland in 1912.  He was fortunate to have missed passage on the Titanic because of its delayed departure date.  The Titanic sailed on April 10, 1912.

Michael and Gertrude Engel Marugg, 1965.

Michael then settled in eastern Washington, gained employment in the area on dairy farms, and met his wife Gertrude Engel in Rosalia, Washington.  In 1924 they purchased the farm in Garden Home and built the dairy barn onto the larger hay barn and silo that was there.

Former Marugg milking parlor, 1930-50.

Their children were George, Barbara, Robert, and twins Shirley and Stanley. The big hay barn was finally torn down when a long milking parlor building was completed.  This building still stands at 8075 SW Oleson Rd.  This building housed 12 cows on each side for the milking machines which were purchased in 1937.  Stanley remembers a period of time when the cows were milked by hand.  They had 50 cows when they moved their dairy to Washougal and had three days of hand milking, twice a day, before the milking parlor was ready.  Today the dairy barn has been converted to a shop visible from Skyhar Drive.  The original house has been moved two blocks to the south and is still on Oleson Road.  The dairy was originally named the Jersey Home Dairy. (Jerseys were highly prized for their rich milk and mild temperament in this era.  They were commonly called beautiful cows for the brown shadings.)

Jersey Cow

In 1938 the name was changed to Garden Home Dairy.  Home delivery routes were established in the Garden Home, Metzger and Collins View and Multnomah area by (brother) George before he joined the Navy in 1941.

Robert was born in 1927 and the twins Shirley and Stanley in 1931.  Some people may remember Robert (Bob) Marugg who, nearly blind, sold household brooms, brushes and other household supplies door to door in the area.  In a 2012 telephone interview, Robert said he had congenital cataracts and then a detached retina.  He went to Blind School in Salem and graduated from Beaverton High in 1946.  Alta Hansen reports that Bob Marugg liked to go swimming in the downtown YMCA pool.  Once when he dove off the high board, the pressure caused the detached retina.

When George quickly joined the Navy in WWII, the family was left without a driver for the milk truck so his sister Barbara became the primary milk route driver.  Shirley would run the milk bottles up to the houses. On special occasions they permitted Bob, almost blind, to drive the milk truck also. The milk route was sold in 1944 to Ted Raz and sold later to the Silver Hill Dairy in Hillsdale.  During this period, milk sold for eleven cents delivered on the porch.The farm was sold in 1951 and the dairy moved to Washougal, Washington.  George became a veterinarian and died in Albany in 2014.  Today Robert lives in Olympia, WA; Shirley lives in Washougal, WA, and Barbara and Stanley live in Vancouver, WA.  The father Michael Marugg, born 5-18-1893, passed away in 1967.   His beloved wife Gertrude was born on 7-2-1899 and died in 1974.There was no Garden Home Park in 1951.  We do not have the exact history but old-timers tell us that the area was a swampy pasture. The Park District was approved in 1955 and the park seemed to have been absorbed by them at this time.

Earthquake:  Stan also remembers the big earthquake of April 1949.  He was sitting in one of their milk trucks he’d driven to Beaverton High School and was bouncing up and down during the quake.  His dad said he never seen concrete bend until then.  He said it was like a wave moving through the concrete in the dairy barn. Beaverton High School sustained damage to the third floor which had to be removed after the earthquake. The Oregonian story does not report the Richter Scale number.  There was severe damage in the Puget Sound area and south into Portland.  We have seen a report that the original 1912 Garden Home School was demolished in 1967 due to previous earthquake damage and a cracked foundation.

© by Elaine Shreve, 2015.

Photos and story from Stanley Marugg.

-See Plane Crash for Marugg memory. https://gardenhomehistory.wordpress.com/2013/11/18/1940s-plane-crash/

-See Feldman for stories of the Fanno Creek Dairy. https://gardenhomehistory.wordpress.com/2013/11/19/bob-feldman/

-See Gertsch family for Shattuck Dairy and other dairies in the area. https://gardenhomehistory.wordpress.com/2010/06/22/early-dairies-by-pete-gertsch/