Read's dairy farm, Teralba
On the 9th November, 1931, World War 1 veteran Percy Read and his wife Florence purchased the house and dairy farm on Quarry Road Teralba.The property stretched from Quarry Road to Victoria Street.There were some forty cows in the herd at this time, which were milked twice daily, with deliveries being made to Teralba, Booragul and Marmong Point.
Additional grazing land was leased from the Stockton Borehole Colliery. A branding iron, still in possession of the family, was made by the colliery blacksmith.
Deliveries were made by horse and cart, and later on vans were purchased. Milking machines and a cold room were aquired over the years.
Percy and Florence had three sons Alan, Clive and Max who all worked for the dairy at varying stages, mainly delivering milk. Alan served with the airforce during World War 2, and later established the Westlakes Advertiser newspaper.
A few years after the end of the second world war Percy sold the dairy, though remained living at the house. Percy spent the rest of his working life delivering milk for the Dairy Farmers Cooperative Company.
In 2004 a new street was gazetted for Teralba. Read Place is named after Percy and Florence Read and their dairy.
Reference
Information supplied by Clive Read
This work by Lake Macquarie City Library is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License