Remembering Mary Cowsert Oakley and Oak-Ayr Dairy Farm

Dairy Month and the dairy industry were nothing new to Mary Oakley of the Oktoc community. Her father, W. C. Cowsert, was a professor of Dairy Science at Mississippi State University for 42 years and she was married to dairy farmer Warren Oakley.

She said, “I never really milked a cow,” the co-owner of Oak-Ayr farm which had a total of 225 pure bred Ayrshire and Holsteins. I did know what a cow looked like and I did know the terminology around diaries,” she said the Starkville native who grew up on the MSU campus.

The Oakley’s met and started going together in high school. Mrs. Oakley continued her studies at MSU as a day student which lead to her degree in accounting. Warren was called to visit Uncle Sam during World War II. He was in the European theater when he was wounded and sent home. When he was discharged at the end of the war, he started back to State. Then his father died and we had a dairy to run.

This was his family’s farm. Warren grew up in this house. There have been five generations of Oakley’s on the land in the area. The first ones were more general farmers. About 1914 his grandfather was one of the first farmers to ship milk to a dairy co-operative-it was in the Dairy Building on campus. That’s the building that is the ROTC building now.

And his father also raised mules that they used on the farm before we had the first tractor and mowing machinery.

The Oakley’s milk about 125 cows of the herd at any given time and raise their own heifer replacements. The advantage of raising your own cattle is that you know the breeding. Mrs. Oakley used her accounting background to keep the farm records for years.

The Oakley’s also have raised five children on the family land - Florence Box, Mary Sue Hankins, Frances McDavid, William and Robert.

With a philosophy of food and cooking that says “you’re a lot better cook if you’re feeding hungry people.” Mrs. Oakley has had lots of experience proving her theory feeding a hard-working farm family.

“We’ve always had three meals a day,” she pointed out. “We have a big breakfast, a farm dinner, and supper. We are meat and potato people- we like to have meat on the table three times a day,” she said. The Oakley’s also raise beef cattle for family consumption. We will let cheese be a reasonable substitute for the meat on occasion.

Sunday evening all of the children and spouses and grandchildren that could make it gathered at her home for supper. We have a simple menu in big quantity. The idea is to get together and to share what has happened during the week.

I make biscuits every morning during the week for breakfast. We have breakfast between six thirty and seven-bacon or sausage or ham and eggs, grits and butter, molasses and homemade preserves for the biscuits. I don’t make biscuits on Saturday and Sunday. On Saturday we have pancakes or the sour cream waffles and on Sunday we have toast.

I learned to cook when I was growing up. In the afternoon, supper was on the table at home at six o’clock. We always had a full meal with cake and biscuits and cornbread. I don’t remember really learning to cook. In the summertime growing up it was just something I had to help with and to figure out. One summer my grandmother taught me to make egg custard.

The oldest recipe in my book is one for cookies that I’ve had since I was a little girl— since the 1930’s- and the very first ingredient is one cup of butter. We do buy lots of dairy products now-I don’t churn any more every day. They make pretty good butter at the creamery.

We’ve always had a big garden until recent years. One year I did without a garden and I missed it.

Although the Oakley’s drink raw milk, they do ship about 800 pounds every other day by refrigerated tank trucks to a dairy that markets milk to Starkville. So very possibly you may have been drinking milk from the Oak-Ayr farm too.

I like to work in the yard. I enjoy working with our neighbors in making preparations for the Oktoc Country Store each fall. We have always been a member of the Oktoc Community Club and I grew up in the Methodist church.

Other hobbles include reading and sewing. She used to make most of the clothes for her three daughters. In addition to that she served as the recording secretary for the District 5 Volunteer Fire Department, as a member of the local board of the Farmer’s Home Administration, and as an Oktibbeha County jury commissioner. She was a member of Farm Bureau. She was recognized for her role in the community when she received the Mississippi Blue Cross Blue Shield Ageless Hero Award.

When we were redoing the museum, I had searched for something from the creamery in vain. Shortly before we had the reopening, Florence Box, brought in a butter box from the creamery which is about a foot long. Her dad said they used to take a box of butter to the legislators every year and they referred to it as their “box of gold.” When the movie was made of the book, the Help, they wanted to borrow it to use for the movie. Our museum is full of treasures of the past!. Remember, Starkville was the Dairy Center of the South!