I Remember Trenton: The Ice Man Was A Staple In Trenton Neighborhoods

By Mary Holt
My parents were Ross and Allie Foland. They were great parents.
When I was a little girl, our family didn’t have an electric refrigerator. At that time, most families did not have one. We had an ice box which was wooden on the outside and insulated inside to keep ice for quite awhile. They had two compartments, an upper and a lower section. The top part of the ice box was for blocks of ice and the lower section was for food. Under the bottom section was a tray, which caught the water as the ice melted. Our mother had to empty it before it ran out on the floor.
There was a man by the name of Eldon Denison who drove an ice truck all over town delivering ice to people’s homes. There was an ice plant on Ninth Street, across from the Lazy K and the Maid-Rite. They made different size blocks of ice.
There were cards with block sizes on the them that people put in a window where Mr. Denison could see it. The cards had four sizes on them. There was a 5, 10, 15 and 20 on the cards, two on the front and two on the back. Whichever number was at the top showed what size block of ice they wanted.
Mr. Denison would drive up, get out of his truck, get a pair of large metal tongs and get a block of ice from the back of his truck. He would bring it to the back door of the home, go in and put it in the ice box.
Mr. Denison was a very nice man. I can see him to this day.
When I was about 12, my folks bought an electric refrigerator. What a marvelous invention. My mother must have thought she was in heaven because she no longer had to empty the water any more.
All of us kids were so fascinated that we would open the refrigerator many times a day just ot see if it really worked. Wow! It was great!
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