Elmer A. Stueve; Co-Founder of Alta-Dena Dairy

Elmer A. Stueve, one of the three brothers who started Alta-Dena Certified Dairy in 1945 with 61 cows and a milk wagon, died Monday in El Monte of the complications of a stroke.

A family spokeswoman said he was 78 and also had been suffering from Alzheimer’s disease.

Stueve was the eldest of 17 children and the first of his family to come to California, in 1936, from Missouri. He found work at a dairy in Azusa. He went into the Army in World War II and by the time he was discharged in 1945, his brothers Edgar and Harold had formed the nucleus of what would become the largest dairy in California.

Over the years the dairy operation, which produced unpasteurized milk, had to fight off several challenges from health authorities who blamed Alta-Dena for outbreaks of salmonella among its customers.

Elmer Stueve managed the maintenance and construction aspects of the dairy, the family spokeswoman said, while his brothers concentrated on animal husbandry and business.

In 1989 the brothers sold the processing operation of their dairy in the City of Industry to an American subsidiary of Bonsrain A.A. of France. However, they maintained ownership of what were then 18,000 cows producing 54,000 gallons of milk a day on several hundred acres in Chino.

In addition to Edgar and Harold, Elmer Stueve is survived by nine other brothers, his wife, Ruth, five sisters, a son, two daughters and 11 grandchildren.

A funeral service is scheduled for Saturday at 10:30 a.m. at the First Lutheran Church in Monrovia.