Memories of Ma Bell
These days, it seems, there is nowhere you can go and be free from its demands.
Nowhere that it won’t insist on your attention.
Nowhere that it won’t interrupt anything else you might have had planned.
And nothing — nothing at all — that will stop the telemarketers from making it into what seems at time to be the instrument of the devil.
The telephone is everywhere these days. Including, for many of us, in a pocket or a purse every waking minute of every waking day … and on the bedstand next to us when we sleep.
Omnipresent. Ubiquitous. Annoying.
But it was not always so, was it?
A research trip to Chicago’s Newberry Library last year reminded me that home telephones were still rarities in the 1930s and 1940s.1 I found a listing for a delicatessen my paternal grandparents briefly owned in the 1930s2… but not even a single home telephone for any of my Chicago relatives.
And there was a reason why news from the war front was sent by telegram — it was the only quick way to get the news to many American homes. As late as January 1948, my mother used the telegraph system to ask her cousin Fred Gottlieb to walk her down the aisle at her wedding, and he replied the same way. (I loved his answer, by the way, when I found it in my mother’s papers after her death: “Am getting married January 22nd but will arrange honeymoon so I can ditch her long enuf to escort you. Fred.”3)
So there was a time when being able to communicate by voice — communicate, not get harangued by sales pitches — was a big deal. First patented in the United States in 1876, the telephone spread to nearly 49,000 users by 1880, 600,000 by 1900, 2.2 million by 1905, 5.8 million by 1910. But it was the post-war prosperity that brought the telephone into most homes — 30 million as of 1948, 80 million by the 1960s, 175 million by 1980.4
And when it finally arrived in our homes, the telephone was a family gamechanger for most of us, wasn’t it? Remember back, all those years ago,5 when the telephone was something that only existed in one room of the house — if it was there at all — and, when it rang, all the people in the house hoped it would be for them?
When it was amazing that good news — and bad news — traveled so fast:
• My sister and I didn’t have to wait until our father came home to tell us that we had a brand-new younger sibling when the brother just younger than I am was born; he telephoned the neighbor who was caring for us, and she came out and told us.
• But I also didn’t have to wait when I was a 16-year-old college freshman, away from home on my own for the first time, and it was the telephone that let me know that my Uncle Barrett had lost his fight with a brain tumor.
When sometimes you had to listen to the ring to know if it was for someone at your house at all? Many homes in rural and suburban areas hooked into what were called party lines — shared or group telephone subscriptions. In 1950, 75% of residential customers were on party lines; that dropped to 27% by 1965. And “telephones on party lines would ring with a particular pattern unique to a household, so the customer would only answer the phone that rang with ‘their’ ring.”6
And that brings to mind what is, to me, my absolute favorite family telephone story.
It seems that back a kazillion years ago, when my mother’s parents were first married, they lived for a time with my grandfather’s older sister Addie (Cottrell) Harris and her family in Wichita Falls, Texas.
My grandfather Clay, born in April 1898,7 was the youngest of 10 known siblings; Addie, born in March 1881,8 was 17 years his senior. By the time my grandparents married at the grand old age of 18, Addie already had teenaged children, including a son who was only a little younger than my grandparents.
Sam Walter Harris, born in 1902,9 was always called Pete. And Pete fell madly in love with his 18-year-old aunt by marriage, Opal.
As the story goes, he made a right nuisance of himself in what everyone thought was a case of puppy love. The following-her-around. The deep sighs. The calf eyes. And he was heartbroken when Clay and Opal prepared to move to Oklahoma.
So he extracted a promise from Opal: when Clay died, he got her to promise, she would then marry Pete.
The years rolled on for the Cottrells and the Harrises. Pete went off to serve in World War II, lived and worked in St. Louis after the war, and went home to Texas to live with and care for his mother.10
And he never married. He would often remind my grandmother of her promise and she would often, with a smile, remind him that Clay wasn’t dead yet.
My grandparents lived in Oklahoma,11 in Texas,12 finally in Virginia, where they lived on a farm owned by their oldest son, my uncle Billy.13
Now for the longest time there was no telephone at the farm. If we needed to make a call, we would drive — or often walk — to the home of a neighbor family named Holland or to the general store that gave the post office its name: Kents Store, Virginia.
And then came the day in the 1960s when, finally, a phone was installed. A party line, to be sure, but instant communication! The ability to reach out to the world at large — and for the world to reach in!
And then came that magical moment when that phone rang for the very first time. Everyone froze, listening to the rings. Would it be…? Could it be…? Would it be for someone at the farm?
And it was. My grandmother reached out and picked up the receiver. In her oh-so-soft Texas drawl, she said hello.
And a scratchy voice on the other end spoke up.
It was Pete.
And the first words heard on that marvelous device?
“Opal, isn’t that son of a (bleep) dead yet?”
Family stories about the telephone.
We all have ’em.
What’s yours?
SOURCES
Image courtesy of OpenClipArt.org user andinuryadin
- See Judy G. Russell, “The delicatessen,” The Legal Genealogist, posted 13 Sep 2014 (https://www.legalgenealogist.com/blog : accessed 6 Feb 2015). ↩
- Chicago Telephone Directory, Summer 1930 (Chicago: Illinois Bell Telephone Co., 1930), 474, entry for Geissler, Hugo; microfilm, Newberry Library, Chicago. ↩
- Western Union telegram, Fred Gottlieb to Hazel Cottrell, 14 Jan 1948; privately held by author. ↩
- “1870s-1940s-Telephone,” Imagining the Internet: A History and Forecast, Elon University School of Communications (http://www.elon.edu/ : accessed 6 Feb 2015). ↩
- Okay, “all those years ago” for those of us whose hair is turning grey, okay? ↩
- “Party Lines,” AT&T Tech Channel, AT&T Archives (http://techchannel.att.com/ : accessed 6 Feb 2015). ↩
- Virginia Department of Health, death certif. no. 70-026728, Clay Rex Cottrell, 21 Sep 1970; Division of Vital Records, Richmond. ↩
- Texas Department of Health, death certif. no. 38558 (1974), Addie Lee Harris, 6 May 1974; Bureau of Vital Statistics, Austin. ↩
- Texas Department of Health, death certif. no. 60782 (1971), Sam Walter Harris, 5 Aug 1971; Bureau of Vital Statistics, Austin. ↩
- “Early days recalled by Iowa Park pioneer,” likely from Wichita Falls (Texas) Daily Times, undated clipping, circa 1970; digital image of the original held by a great granddaughter, Odessa, Texas. The date was calculated by reference to the age of the subject, Addie Cottrell Harris, then said to be 89, who was born in 1881. ↩
- 1920 U.S. census, Tillman County, Oklahoma, Haskell Twp., population schedule, enumeration district (ED) 170, p. 256(B)(stamped), dwelling/family 227, C.R. “Cottorell” household; digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 6 Feb 2015); citing National Archive microfilm publication T625, roll 1488. ↩
- 1930 U.S. census, Midland County, Texas, Midland City, population schedule, enumeration district (ED) 2, p. 247A (stamped), dwelling 287, family 317, Clay R. Cottrell; digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 13 Jan 2012); citing National Archive microfilm publication T626, roll 2376. Also, 1940 U.S. census, Midland County, Texas, Midland City, population schedule, enumeration district (ED) 165-3A, page (illegible)(B) (stamped), sheet 7(B), household 161, C R Cottrell household; digital image, Archives.gov (http://1940census.archives.gov : accessed 20 Sep 2013); citing National Archive microfilm publication T627, roll 4105 ↩
- See Judy G. Russell, “End of an era,” The Legal Genealogist, posted 31 Mar 2012 (https://www.legalgenealogist.com/blog : accessed 6 Feb 2015). ↩
Can’t remember any family stories, but I do remember that in the 1950’s our telephone number exchange was KI5 which represented Kilmer 5 out of New Brunswick. We probably shared the same exchange, yes?
Kilmer was probably closer to Route 27. The Stelton area was usually Charter.
We were about a mile away from Stelton…in the direction of the current municipal offices.
That would have been my bet, Diane — crossing at least one and maybe two highways from where the train station is!
It was Thanksgiving 1967 and I was a sophomore in college. I lived in a sorority house which meant one telephone for 30 girls so it was definitely a “party” line. Anyway, before leaving for home for the holiday I was introduced to young man by a mutual friend. He seemed like a nice enough fellow and he asked if after we got back from Thanksgiving if he could call me. I said yes, thinking, what the heck, can’t hurt?
So I told my folks about this nice fellow and that I needed to get back to school a bit earlier than we would normally plan on to await his call. Well, the best laid plans and all, of course I was way later than I had hoped to be getting back to the sorority house. As I walked in the door I was met by at least five of my sisters who informed me that this guy had called at least four times for me and he seemed pretty anxious and maybe miffed that I wasn’t there.
Luckily for me I was there when he called the fifth time. And as it turned out if I hadn’t been there he was not going to call again. This September we will celebrate our 45th wedding anniversary 🙂
LOVE IT!!! What a great story!
Wonderful story!
Good memories!
My paternal grandparents lived on a farm and shared a party line. My grandmother knew everyone’s ring, but picked up every call anyway, so she could “rubber” and listen to the conversation.
Tsk tsk! (And it’s funny that Lisa’s comment below came in just after yours!)
My mother lived on the family farm in Oregon for much of her young life. Her mother and their siblings ran the farm. If they wanted to contact a relative who lived close by, they spoke German on the phone, knowing that it was a party line, and other people were always listening in.
Yep, using whatever tools you had to avoid the nosy neighbors was a necessary skill!
I remember when I was 16 and allowed to have Boys call. My Dad had to get the 2way line to switch over. He got tired of the Line being Busy!!!! Plus we had the same phone number from 1963 until 2009 when my Dad passed. It took us 3 months to finally let my Brother disconnect it. He got tired of every time he had to check the House me and my Sister would be on the answering machine breathing. It took me 3 years to get my childhood phone number out of my cell. I will always remember 939-7668. Thanks for the Memories Judy!
We all remember those early phone numbers, don’t we?
In 1997 the late Dick Pence published a small book,_Two Longs and a Short; and other Tales of the Old West_. One of the short, three-page stories in it is “Two Longs and a Short.” You can read it at Dick’s old website: http://www.pipeline.com/~richardpence/twolongs.htm. Your posting today and Dick’s story bring back a lot of memories to this old, rural Mid-Westener.
I had the great good fortune to hear Dick give the talk “Two Longs and a Short” on a Master Genealogist cruise. Ah… he is missed.
Carol, thanks for the link to Dick Pence’s delightful story, ‘Two Longs and a Short’. It’s a classic! It brings back memories of a similar but less extreme situation that I encountered when I was trying to phone home from boarding school in the late 1960s.
The ring pattern unique to a household was actually Morse code – or at least, it was in Australia. Where I grew up (outback Queensland) the phone numbers consisted of 3 digits (assigned to a particular party line) followed by one letter (assigned to a particular household). There were (I think) six households on our party line, and the phone numbers were assigned in such a way that each of their letters was a 3-tone ring. Ours (K) was ‘long-short-long’.
That’s really interesting, Judy. I don’t recall ever seeing a reference to the use of Morse code here in the US for party line rings.
My aunt & uncle lived on a farm in the 70’s and still had a party line! I’d pick up the phone and be surprised to hear other people having a conversation. If it was something important, a grown up would ask whoever was on the line if they could have the phone for a few minutes.
Yep, asking to get the line freed up was often needed if you had a Chatty Cathy on the same party line.
For those researching the UK, all the historical phone books have been digitised on Ancestry. Searching is pretty tough work as the clues aren’t all that straightforward, but for unusual surnames it is interesting. I remember in the 1970s a friend in southern England still had a 2-digit number and needed operator connection; occasionally I would reach an operator who denied that such numbers still existed, and refuse to try the connection!
That’s funny, Graham — a little like Dick Pence’s story for sure!
When I was a young child in the 1940s, we lived on a small farm and had a basic black phone, of course without a dial. We were on an eight-party line and our number was 98J2, which was two short rings. You really had to listen to make sure it was two short and not two long rings before you answered. When you wanted to make a call, you picked up the phone and gave the operator the number you wanted to call. You had to be very careful of what you said, who you talked about and what you said, as other people in the party often listened in. Mom was very strict about us not listening to others conversations and if we wanted to use the phone and someone was talking, we were to hang up immediately. When I was a teen in the 50s and wanted to talk with friends, I was only allowed to talk for 5 minutes and only once a day. One day, when some of us friends were together, we started talking about time zones and wondered what time it was in Hawaii. Thinking the operator would know, I picked up the phone to ask her (for some reason, all the operators seemed to be female). She didn’t know, but she connected us to an operator in Hawaii, who told me what time it was there. Another time, our phone rang in the middle of the night. When Mom answered, the operator said, “Moyne, your next door neighbor, Mae, can’t get out of her house.” Knowing that Mae was married to a man that abused her, Mom woke Dad up and when they went to go out the front door, they stepped into flood water over their knees; the creek behind our houses had flooded, and that’s why Mae couldn’t get out of the house. I never did find out why Mae had the operator call, instead of calling directly.Thank you for encouraging the memories.
Wonderful stories! And you’re writing these all down to include in your own family history, right? Right? 🙂
I’m late replying to “Number, Please” (Carnival parades have started here, so I’m way behind.), but I wanted to thank whoever posted the link for “Two longs and a short”. I enjoyed it so much. Brought back a story my father told when he was courting my mother in the 1930s. He lived in New Orleans and she lived on the Miss. Gulf Coast. One day when he called, the operator didn’t even bother to ring the phone, just told him the family was at the circus. He never got over that, having grown up in a big city.
Love that story, Jan!
In our East Flatbush, Brooklyn home I had my own Princess phone and separate number as a teen in the 60s. When my husband and I went off to Teheran, we stayed with my in-laws until we moved into our own apartment. I was shocked to learn that, at my in-laws, the four apartments in the building shared a party line. I had only seen that before in the movies or on TV – I thought it was prehistoric. When we finally moved into our own apartment, we finally had our own phone. However, if we wanted to call the US, we had to go down to the Post Office and make the international call from there. By the time we left in 1978, someone from my husband’s office would go to the Post Office, and handle the details and then we could call from the house. Everything is relative!
Amazing what efforts had to be made for something we take so much for granted now…
And consider also the cost of making long distance calls . . . My father was frugal as were many who lived through the Depression, and also was somewhat protective of my sister, his first child. He was reluctant enough to have a young woman attend college the only purpose of which he believed was to find a husband. She attended Penn State, as had he, and he remembered people having fatal accidents on the bad mountain roads back in the late 1920s. He insisted that she call every time she traveled back there just to let him know she’d arrived. But calling long distance cost a lot of money by the standards of the day. They agreed that Mary would place a person-to-person call to herself at our home. The operator would ring us and say “I have a person-to-person call for ‘Mary’ from ‘Sarah’ in State College,” but since Mary was 150 miles away we could “honestly” refuse to accept the call. There would be no charge for to either party and dad would know Mary was safe at school.
I suspect every family did that sort of thing — I know mine did too!
I thought it was only my dad that did that. Exact same plan — person-to-person call to my paternal grandparents using a pre-arranged name as a code for “we got home okay and nothing important enough to pay for a call happened along the way.”
There is a [now] hilarious instructional film from 1950 in which Ma Bell explained how to use a rotary dial, what dial tone sounded like, and what sounds you would here for a call ringing vs. a busy signal.
Nope, your dad was far from alone on that one! Love the video.
Remember back before answering machines and someone just kept yammering away, I was trying to call home for a ride and decided to have operator Break The Line and scared the hell outta my sister and Mom don’t do that again. LOL. Can’t do that no more. Fun little blog enjoyed it.