Milk was big business
It’s hard to believe that what’s now the fourth most densely populated county in the most densely populated state in the nation was once known for its farmland. Yet, even as recently as 50 years ago there was a family-owned dairy farm located in Rutherford. The family-owned Bonny Dell Farm bordered the east side of Route 17 (then the much humbler Route 2), near where the Meadowlands Office Complex currently stands.
The dairy was established in the late 1920s by a man named Morgan Lentz. He and his wife along with his growing family of children lived on the land and raised primarily cows (at one point as many as 56), but also pigs, chickens and a few horses. Lentz delivered his products to homes throughout the south Bergen area at first by horse-drawn cart but later by van.
"[I]n the cool green pastures of Bergen County, Mr. Morgan Lentz has established Bonny Dell Farm, to which he devotes his entire time and conscientious effort," says a promotional pamphlet the farm published. It advertises the farm’s "56 heads of beautiful cows, all tuberculin-tested and under state supervision." Dairies such as Bonny Dell were regulated not only by the state, but also by municipalities. Rutherford’s sanitary code still retains regulations governing cows and stables: It specifies how udders are to be washed before each milking, how many cubic feet of air space each cow must have in an enclosed stable and the conditions the barns must be kept in.
A promotional pamphlet for the dairy touts its high standards and state-of-the-art equipment: "Modern buildings, white tiled milk house and scientific machinery guarantee absolute cleanliness," it says. "The milk is untouched by human hands, for it is bottled by machinery and electric bottle-washers assure that all containers will be sterile before use."
Vince Matthews, an 81-year-old lifelong resident of the borough, remembers visiting the dairy when he was a child.
"It was an attraction for kids," he said. Lentz was always willing to let kids walk around the farm and watch the cows getting milked. Matthews even remembers getting sprayed straight from the udder by one of the farmhands one time as a gag. He and his neighbors used to get deliveries by truck of milk, cheese and butter from the farm each morning.
Sylvia Kleff, the chair of Lyndhurst’s Historical Society and a volunteer at the Meadowlands Museum where several photos as well as old milk bottles and butter jars from the farm can still be found, said she remembers school classes from the area used to take day trips over to see the dairy. Kleff and one of Lentz’s daughters were the only two female students in their college class.
Eleanor Katsch of Pompton Plains, formerly of Rutherford, grew up about a block away from the farm and was good friends with Lentz’s oldest daughter, Evelyn. She remembers sitting around the table in the farmhouse’s downstairs kitchen with the 10 to 20 farmhands Lentz employed.
Lentz was very generous to Katsch’s family in hard times, she recalls. In the late 1930s, towards the end of the Great Depression, Katsch’s father lost his job. As the family cut back they had to cancel their milk deliveries. One day Lentz stopped by their house and when he learned what had happened he told the family they could keep getting whatever they needed for free. Each day Katsch and her siblings would walk over with an empty pail get it filled with milk or cream.
"He was a good man," said Katsch. "Can you imagine being out of a job and still having a luxury like whipped cream?"
