Days of Yore
.
as recounted by

Bill Day

 



The Goat Farm
A subject from the past does not necessarily have to be too far in the long ago. It can still be a topic that not too long ago was a way of life, but to our world today it is practically unknown. In 1942, the last stop of Charlie Lingg's newspaper route in Cherry Hill was at Mrs. Sophia Stratton's goat farm on the left side of Kings Highway toward Moorestown. It was just past the Ellisburg Circle on the corner of Tampa Avenue.

On Sophia's two acres, she pastured five goats. Besides giving a daily ample supply of milk, those goats were splendid watchdogs, as they carried on high when an outsider approached.

Goat milk is highly nutritious and easy to digest and beneficial for ill people. Sophia daily made a trip to Haddonfield to deliver her fresh goat milk to regular customers.

Sophia occasionally was unable to deliver her quarts to her customers, but industrious lady that she was, this did not happen often. However, when she could not make her trip to Haddonfield, it was a familiar sight to see a cart pulled by a pony headed toward Ellisburg down Kings Highway.

It was being driven by one of Haddonfield's prominent matrons, Mrs. J. Fithian Tatam, and in the cart, fully enjoying the rider, would be her children. They were going to Sophia Stratton's for the goat milk.

Only 37 years ago, Sophia's business was merely a way of life, but how homespun her activity seems now, in the modern world of today.

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