As time marches on, everyday items that we take for granted slowly disappear and fade out of our lives. Phone booths, for example, which dotted the American landscape in years past, have all but disappeared, while typewriters have also been consigned to the dustbin of history. Milk delivery isn’t nearly as widespread as it once was, but in years past, the Schiek Dairy Company not only saw to this, but was also a true part of Mokena. Their roots were set down in our community, and to this day, the service they provided is fondly remembered by countless town residents.
The Schieks came from good Mokena stock. Their forebears settled in the yet-unnamed Frankfort Township in 1848, and counted themselves as one of our neighborhood’s first German-born residents. Not long after the Civil War, Phillip Schiek carved out space for a 27-acre farm along a country lane that we now call Wolf Road, and around 1870, he erected a sturdy farmhouse there that for more than 100 years would be identified with his descendants.
Philip’s son, Henry Schiek, was himself a farmer, and as best could be remembered, started casually selling milk to a handful of area residents from a horse drawn wagon around 1902. Refrigeration not being what it is now, he delivered every morning in big tin cans, and would come back the next day to fetch the empties. In 1906, his seven-year-old son Lester started working at his side, helping in the sleepy hours before school started in town. In his later years, Lester would recall “running like the devil” before he was due for class almost a mile away on the corner of Front Street and the now aptly named Schoolhouse Road.
Father and son Schiek never missed a day hauling milk, even during the snowbound winters when the few unpaved roads were unusable, sometimes requiring them to cut over fields with their horse team. As their business expanded, they began to buy milk from some neighbors to augment their own supply, and eventually an outbuilding on the Wolf Road farm was built to be used as a dairy house. Milk was brought here from the large barn that stood where today’s Peppermill Restaurant is, when it was then put into a big cooling vessel. From there, it went to another contraption that could fill four quart or pint bottles at a time, while also sealing them.
A window into a bygone age: The farmhouse of the Henry Schiek family, seen here around 1910. Seen here left to right are Henry Schiek, Dewey the Dog, Lester Schiek, Alma Schiek, Mabel Schiek and Carrie Schiek. The historic farmhouse stood at today's 19200 Wolf Road. (Image courtesy of Richard Quinn)
In 1928, the business was passed completely to Lester Schiek, when his father Henry retired from the milk route. In the 1930s, Lester did a little modernizing by replacing the old wagon with a truck, with which he literally lightened the load of deliveries to town. In its heyday, Schiek Dairy counted around 300 to 400 local customers a week. Lester was not without competition however, as Marti Dairy operated across Wolf Road to the northwest from 1927 to 1945. Having stood appropriately at the current site of the Creamery, this concern was run by another Mokena farming family of long establishment, but was never able to match the Schieks’ client base.
By 1953, the Schieks ran three different routes and supplied 95% of the village with not only milk, but also butter, cottage cheese, and orangeade. As it was since its birth, Schiek Dairy was a family enterprise. Lester’s wife, Julia, helped where she could, and their son Willis (known around town as Bill) came in too at 20 in 1950. Daughters Joyce and Jean had a hand in making deliveries, who were well known in Mokena as being expert equestrians. The company was the kind of small town business that had the same families as customers for years. There came a point where patrons could walk into one of the farm’s small outbuildings on their own, take what they needed, and simply leave a note saying what they had taken along with some money.
The matriarch and patriarch of Mokena's milk trade: Julia and Lester Schiek, seen here at their home around 1980. (Image courtesy of Richard Quinn)
When the dairy finally made its last delivery in 1976, it owned two trucks and looked over a herd of twenty cows. Gas stations selling milk dotted the landscape, and the Schieks’ trade was no longer profitable. Lester Schiek, the amiable patriarch of his family and business, passed away peacefully on October 6th, 1984 in his landmark farmhouse on Wolf Road as he watched a ball game. By the time the 20th century was out, the old place was erased from the landscape, and gave way to Grease Lightning at today’s 19149 Wolf Road.
Lester’s grandson, Ralph Wiley, recently reminisced about his grandfather and the honored place he has in Mokena’s history. “I’ve never been around a harder working man in my life,” Wiley remembered. “They don’t make ‘em like Lester anymore.”
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