Sunday, February 27, 2000
How times have changed
By Malinda Ruble
Staff Writer
As the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio considers adding another area code number to the present system, some local residents recall the days when dialing the phone required no numbers at all.
"We used to have crank phones with two numbers. There would be one ring, or two rings or three rings and that would tell which person was to answer, because it rang into everyone's home. In the country they would have three or four or more people on a line and in town they had two on a party line,'' said Rosalie Adams, a former telephone operator and former director of the Seneca County Museum.
Adams said the telephone system was easy because the operator would just make the connection.
"First you had to listen to make sure no one else was on the line and then you cranked the phone and got the operator and told her the number. If you were on the phone, someone could listen to you talk and then when they got tired of listening, they'd tell you to hang up,'' said Adams.
However, not everyone had a crank phone and the phones were not used as often as they are today.
"We didn't talk much. But you always knew when something was happening in a house because the phone would ring all day,'' Adams said.
Seneca County Commissioner Kenny Estep said he remembers the crank phones and "traveling."
"I remember when the operator was there when I was a kid. They'd call out and talk to my aunt in Illinois and whoever was calling was 'traveling.' They would say, 'You're traveling now' as the call went on to the next city because the operator would take you through manually. The cities that you went through showed up like a line on a map to where you were calling,'' he said.
Both Adams and Estep agreed the telephone operators were the heart of the system and always knew the area well.
"If you had any problem, you'd just call the operator. They knew the yellow pages. If you were trying to call someone, the girl would say, 'Oh, they moved and we have their new number.' They knew it all. It was a very personal service &emdash; not impersonal,'' said Estep.
Adams, who served as a telephone operator in Tiffin and Bloomville, knew the ins and outs of the job.
"The telephone operator would have a light come on and you would plug into the light and they would tell you the number. There were just two numbers and then everyone had a letter. And then the operator would plug in, but she could listen in on the conversation, but it was illegal,'' she said.
As an operator, Adams had some interesting experiences.
"One time I was accosted on the street by someone I thought was a friend and she asked me to listen in on a call. It was during the war and I realized she was probably a communist. I refused and I told my supervisor about it. I never heard what happened to her,'' she said.
Adams also worked in the Bloomville telephone office when the building caught fire.
"I was in high school and I worked as an operator at night and the building behind the office caught fire and then caught the telephone office on fire. I just sat at the switchboard until they told me I had to leave,'' Adams said.
Despite the excitement, Adams continued to work as a telephone operator for some time.
"I needed the money after the war so I continued,'' she said.
For Carl Depinet, former manager of the Bascom phone company, serving as a telephone operator was an important job.
"In October 1954, Bascom switched to the rotary phone, but before that we had two lady operators during the day shift and then the manager took care of the switchboard from 10 at night to 6 in the morning. I used to sleep right next to the switchboard and it had a loud bell on it that would wake you up. But every now and then we'd have a fire during the night and we had six to eight firemen you had to call and that kept you on your toes. You had to get them out of bed and onto the emergency,'' Depinet said.
As technology advanced, the rotary telephone came into use and customers received individual phone numbers and eventually area codes.
The PUCO public hearing to discuss the expansion of the 419 area code will be at 7 p.m. Wednesday at Franks Hall, Tiffin University.