One last switchboard entry

I found an excellent article online that explains simply and in detail how a switchboard works.  Click HERE to read it.  
So I found out that the things I called "drops" were actually called "drop shutters", but I noticed in the article they were called drops at one point.  The plugs were indeed called plugs, so I had that right.  There's a guy actually selling old switchboard parts to collectors; you'll find his site HERE.

The switchboard

This is the kind of telephone everybody had back in the switchboard days.

After I rambled on about growing up with a switchboard in the corner of our house, my husband started asking questions I had difficulty answering.  After all, I was only eleven years old when my parents moved to the city and got regular jobs; my memories of the switchboards in various houses where we lived are spotty, at best.  
Cliff asked if there was a "ring" when someone called Central wanting to talk to someone else.  First I said yes, but after thinking about it, I said, "Wait... no, I don't think so.  A drop dropped, and you stuck a plug in the hole behind the 'drop'.  But surely there was a noise, or how would you know someone wanted to make a call if you were in the other room?"  
I know that makes no sense to my readers, but it was coming back to me, the terms my parents used.  They did indeed call those little things drops, and they called the other things plugs!  I'm sure there were proper names for these items.  I only know what I heard as a child.  
I was lamenting the fact that my mom is no longer around to answer our questions about switchboards when it hit me that there is, indeed, somebody who knows all about the old telephone systems:  My sister, who is sixteen years older than I.  She's a winter Texan, and I needed to call and check in with her anyway.  

This is my sister making noodles over the holidays with her great-granddaughter.

 Maxine informed me that when the drop fell down, there was a buzzing sound that was loud enough to be heard if you were in another room.  (Once she told me that, the sound came back to me!)  Because all the communities my parents served were rural, there weren't a lot of customers.  Maxine said there were busy times of day, but most of the time there wasn't a lot of action at the switchboard.  
"But what about during the night," I said.  "Was that buzzing loud enough to wake my parents from a deep sleep?"  
"Well, the rules were that you didn't make any calls after 10 P.M. unless it was an emergency," she told me.  "When we went to bed we flipped a switch so the switchboard made a loud noise if someone made an emergency call."  
At Eagleville, our last switchboard house, there was a siren on a pole in the yard.  If a house caught fire in town, someone would call my parents at the switchboard and they'd turn on the siren.  Then those "drops" would drop like crazy as people called to see where the fire was so they could go assist in the bucket brigade.  Mother would be plugging in plugs with both hands, stating the location of the fire to each person.
The switchboards my sister remembers were the ones in Iowa; when she was a teenager, she spent a lot of time being "Central" at the switchboard.  She remembers knowing all the customers by the sound of their voices.  Sometimes someone would say to her, "Could you call Mom for me?" without giving any name.  Everybody knew everybody.  
Maxine told me that long distance calls back then were really complicated.  Say I lived in Guss, Iowa, and wanted to call Kansas City:  I'd call Central and give them the phone number of the person I wanted to reach.  The operator would say "OK, I'll try to reach that number" and I would hang up.  When the operator reached the number, she'd call me back and connect me with my party.  
Wow.  Things were a lot more difficult in the old days, weren't they?  
By the way, Maxine tells me the grapefruits in her back yard are extra big and delicious this year.

The Royal Telephone

I've mentioned here before how I grew up with a switchboard in the living room.  For most of the first twelve years of my life, the switchboard was a fixture in our house, and it seemed as natural to me as having a refrigerator in the kitchen.  My parents were operators in Villisca, Nodaway, and Guss in Iowa, and finally at Eagleville, Missouri.   

Don't you wish you could go back to childhood and snap some pictures of things that nobody ever thought to photograph (or couldn't because there were no flash attachments)?  Things like my mom or dad sitting at the switchboard, or Grandma Stevens sitting in her rocking chair, crocheting.  

If my mom had things to do in the house like canning or cleaning, Daddy took over the switchboard.  When we went to church (Sunday morning, Sunday night, and Wednesday night) a girl was hired to stay with the switchboard.  In these small communities, nobody called anybody else without going through "Central" unless they were calling someone on their party line.  If they placed a phone call at midnight, one of my parents had to get out of bed and see that the call went through.  When my mom went into the hospital for several days, my sister came to Eagleville to tend the switchboard, bringing her son with her.  Larry was four or five years old at the time, and I took him to school with me for half a day sometimes, while he was there.  Can you imagine a school allowing that now?  Larry was an exceptionally good child, and he sat at my desk with me and colored pictures and looked at books.  We walked home at noon, and I went back to school alone after lunch.    

The teacher, Mrs. Grabill, also taught my mom when she was a kid.  That's me standing next to her.

If there was a fire in town, Mother and Daddy turned on the town siren, which was on a pole at the far end of our yard, I believe, next to highway 69; when the siren sounded, people would call Central to see where the fire was.  I thought it was quite impressive that my parents had the power to turn that siren on!  

Lately my Eagleville switchboard memories have been jogged a bit because of finding some people from my past on Facebook.  The old song "Royal Telephone" came to mind.  When I look at the words of that song, I realize how perplexed most people would be trying to figure out what it's talking about.  For instance, in the first line, "Central's never busy":  If my mom ran to the outhouse and Daddy wasn't around, she hurried, because nobody in the community could make a phone call when she was away from the switchboard.  Central could also be busy if several people were making calls at once.  The service was not "free for one and all" like the Royal Telephone; everyone received a monthly bill. 

The third verse has the words:  "Fail to get your answer? Satan's crossed your wire...", which reminds me of the times I'd get in the car with Daddy after a windstorm had blown the wires together until they crossed.  This caused people on the party lines to hear static and various conversations intruding on their calls.  Daddy had a long pole with a hook on the end that he used to reach up and uncross the lines.  

The next verse mentions the line being "grounded", which I think happened when a strong wind (or a car colliding with a pole) caused the telephone wire to end up on the ground.     

ROYAL TELEPHONE

Central’s never “busy,” always on the line;  

You may hear from Heaven almost any time;
’Tis a royal service, free for one and all;
When you get in trouble, give this royal line a call.

Refrain

Telephone to glory, O what joy divine!
I can feel the current moving on the line,
Built by God the Father for His loved and own,
We may talk to Jesus thru this royal telephone.

There will be no charges, telephone is free,
It was built for service, just for you and me;
There will be no waiting on this royal line,
Telephone to glory always answers just in time.

Refrain

Fail to get the answer, Satan’s crossed your wire,
By some strong delusion, or some base desire;
Take away obstructions, God is on the throne,
And you’ll get your answer thru this royal telephone.

Refrain

If your line is “grounded,” and connection true
Has been lost with Jesus, tell you what to do;
Prayer and faith and promise, mend the broken wire,
’Till your soul is burning with the Pentecostal fire.

Refrain

Carnal combinations cannot get control
Of this line to glory, anchored in the soul;
Storm and trial cannot disconnect the line,
Held in constant keeping by the Father’s hand divine.

Refrain

Curtain stretchers (and other memories)

My parents moved a lot as I was growing up, but we lived in the switchboard house at Guss, Iowa, for at least seven years. Many of my fondest childhood memories are linked to that home, and most of the snapshots taken of me as a baby were taken in front of it. I included Skinner School in the slide show because that's my first school, the one I attended when we lived in Guss. I remember the "Uncle Sam" mailbox that's pictured here.




I remember what much of the inside of that house looked like. I recall sitting on the front porch on a summer evening with Daddy, the radio inside broadcasting "the fights" (boxing matches) blaring through an open window, and my dad getting so involved in the action that he was squirming in his seat and throwing punches. He was a big fan of Joe Lewis.

Some other things I recall from those seven years of my childhood:



Every spring Mother would take down the lacey curtains in the living room, wash them, and put them on the curtain-stretcher so they'd dry wrinkle-free. I remember running around the stretched curtains in the yard and peeking through them. The whole living room smelled clean and fresh when the curtains were brought back inside, after drying in the sun.

I recall Mother using pants-stretchers, too, on Daddy's pants; a Google search tells me that those are still available!

Flour-sifters. When I was growing up, flour was always sifted before measuring it and adding it to your mix. In fact, I still sifted flour after I got married, back when I made all our bread. I still have a sifter, but I only use it when I make an angel food cake, or an "Elvis Presley's favorite pound cake", from scratch; that happens about once every five years.

I recall making baby dolls out of clothespins like these. I'd take an ink pen, draw a tiny face on the top part, and bundle my "baby" in a Kleenex tissue. I believe my mom showed me how to do this. (Oh, and she had taken an outgrown baby dress of mine and sewed it up at the bottom for a clothespin holder to take out to the line! I just remembered that.) She also taught me how to shape the silver inside wrapper from my piece of Juicy Fruit gum into a chalice. She showed me this while sitting in Church, probably trying to occupy me. But I digress.


Egg beaters were in common use in the '40's and '50's. Fact is, I still use one, if the only thing in a recipe that needs beating is eggs. It's much easier and faster than getting out the mixer and dirtying up a mixer bowl.

And that's today's trip down memory lane.