Living in "the switchboard house"

Brad had some questions about today's post in which I mentioned living in a switchboard house.

"Was 'the Switchboard House' part of the phone company? That kind of switchboard? I've always wondered how the long distance operators knew how much money you put into the payphone back then."

Brad, back then in rural areas and small towns, the switchboard was in the living room of a house. Whoever was employed by the phone company to be "central" (the phone operator) got to live in the house as part of their compensation. My parents were responsible twenty-four hours a day for tending to any calls that might be made through our switchboard.

Now, people were polite and didn't normally use the phone at hours when we might be sleeping, unless it was an emergency... or unless they'd imbibed a bit too much. So I don't think my parents' sleep was disturbed too often. My mom paid a neighbor girl to come and stay with the switchboard when we went to Church three times a week. If we went somewhere overnight or on vacation, we paid somebody, usually a teenage girl, to stay at our house and be the operator.

As far as the payphone goes, our little town had one public phone that I remember. It was in our living room, just inside the door, and I imagine if you used it you simply handed over the change to my parents.

I recently did an entry about switchboards: you'll find it HERE.