Savoring Valomilk Memories

Just 4 years old, Russ Sifers climbed a wooden step stool to peek into the kettle of melted chocolate at the family candy factory. “I was fascinated by the light and dark chocolate and the smell,” Sifers recalls.

Forty years later, Sifers rescued that same chocolate melter, fired it up and ran down the street to the nearest phone to call his wife with the news.

Yes, the old equipment worked. Yes, he was one step closer to bringing back Valomilk, the marshmallow-filled chocolate cups his grandfather discovered by accident more than 70 years ago.

Sifers may have a business degree, but he acted from his heart and not his checkbook when he revived the family’s once-famous candy in 1987. Memories the old-time candy evokes are as sweet and gooey as the product Sifers now manufactures in Merriam, Kan. (pop. 11,008).

“I get such wonderful letters,” Sifers says. And he answers every one.

Such as Donna Dinwiddie’s note. The Scottsville, Ky., woman learned her state capitals from a 1950s Valomilk promotion. Cardboard disks, printed with states and capitals, could be redeemed for free candy.

“Mom worked really hard to raise four kids by herself, and spare money was scarce,” Dinwiddie writes. “We would use our little extra money to buy Valomilks. It’s one of my favorite childhood memories. Please, never stop making them.”

Memories like these rewrote the script of Sifers’ own life in 1985. At the time, he worked in management at General Motors, and Valomilk was history. In 1970, candy companies were merging to stay competitive, and Sifers’ father, Clarence, sold to a California company. The company automated and tossed the old equipment into a coal bin, including original copper kettles used by Sifers’ great-grandfather Samuel Sifers, who started the chocolate business in 1903. The deal didn’t pan out, and Valomilk closed in 1981.

One night, Sifers says, he was listening to a radio talk show, and the topic was nostalgic candy.

“The host opened the show talking about Valomilk, and the phones just lit up. I was amazed that people kept calling in with enthusiasm, that this candy meant something to them.”

The “original flowing center candy cup” came about accidentally in 1931 when a cook, tipsy from vanilla, ruined a batch of marshmallow. Sifers’ grandfather, Harry Sifers, scooped the goo into a chocolate cup, and Valomilk was created: V for vanilla, ALO for marshmallow and MILK because it was creamy.

Sifers listened to the radio show, then made a call that changed his life.

“I said I was thinking about bringing Valomilks back,” Sifers says. “The phone lines just jammed after that.”

His wife, Julie, an Episcopal priest, backed his venture as did their four children: Tim, Wendy, Dave and Sarah.

“This was his heritage,” Julie says. “We talked it over and I said, ‘Russ, what do you want to do with the rest of your life?’”

Sifers got back the rights to the Valomilk name, along with the family’s original candy-making equipment. For two years, he and Dave rebuilt the candy wrapping machine and chocolate depositor. Friends helped for free—or nearly free.

“We got to eat all the leakers,” Neal Schmutzler says with a laugh.

In 1987, Valomilk went back on the market, made the way they always had been, by hand stirring the chocolate and hand shaking it atop the cups to evenly cover the creamy centers.

The whole company harkens to yesteryear. Bookkeeper Mildred Young, 82, types invoices on a typewriter. Sifers writes orders on an oversized wall calendar. Distribution seemed impossible until Sifers found Rick Rucker of Bridgeport, Ill., who markets old-fashioned candy to rural hardware stores, lumberyards and feed stores.

“I’m not in this to make money. I’m in it to make smiles,” Sifers says. “About the time I’m down and beat up, I get a little fan mail.”

For more information, log onto www.valomilk.com

Marti Attoun of Joplin, Mo., is a frequent contributor to American Profile.

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