Anamosa - A Reminiscence 1838 - 1988

hours were long, with a lot of hard work. It was not
unusual for employees to work 12 to 14 hours a day
during the summer months, and at a monthly wage.
Overtime pay and vacations were unheard of and sixday
work weeks were the norm.
But for those that worked there, especially under the
Anamosa Ice Cream
A. Hazel Smith was said to have had the most
enviable job in town. From 1919 until 1949, he
estimated that he had made over one million gallons of
ice cream for the Anamosa Farrner’s Creamery Co.
Chocolate, strawberry and vanilla are the all-time
favorites, but many other flavors were chumed out of
the ice cream freezer at the rate of 12 gallons every
seven minutes.
A few of the dozens of flavors were chocolate zig-zag.
strawberry zig zag, raspberry ripple, butter pecan.
maple nut, peach, black cherry, chocolate
marshmallow, chocolate chip, banana, orangepineapple,
nestleroad, spimoni, cherry nut and one of
the all-time favorites, honeymoon flavor.
Rumors were that Hazel had a secret formula for his
ice cream. but his only secret came from a life-time of
experience in blending ingredients into just the right
combination. One detail never changed. He always
management of A. Hazel Smith, the atmosphere was
‘family-like‘ and, like a family. it had its ups and downs;
but in the end, all hung together and provided ‘service
with a smile’ where the customer was usually right. A
slpecial bond still exists among all those who worked
t ere.
used pure vanilla extract in his ice cream and never
gave into imitation vanilla.
Times changed in the ice cream business. When
Hazel first started making ice cream at the creamery in
1919, he made it like people used to at home—with salt
and ice and a motor-powered freezer. Then in 1920
came brine to freeze it, but in 1939, he started using a
freezing machine in which liquid ammonia expands to
gas so suddenly that it freezes the ice cream almost as
soon as the mixture was poured into the machine.
When the mixture reached 26 degrees, a door was
opened and it poured out into five-gallon cans which
were stored in a refrigerated room and kept at zero
temperature.
An account of the Anamosa Creamery ice cream
would not be complete without the mention of the
famous Polarstik. They were rectangles of ice cream on
a stick. dipped in melted chocolate, and then rolled in
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Early view of the ice cream manufacturing room at
the Anamosa Farmer's Creamery Co. A.Hazel Smith
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is pictured at the left. The man on the right is
unidentified. (Submitted by June Schmidt)