1937 Phone Service Arrives

PARTY LINES

Perhaps some readers have seen the famous Normal Rockwell Painting on the old Saturday Evening Post Cover that showed lots of people all gathered around a old wall phone ,,, well listening to the local gossip?

Lockville, got phone service in 1937 and all the lines in town were party lines. People today could not even fathom a party line or even anything like the TV show of the Era Green Acres where you had to climb the pole to get the phone. Party lines for the uninformed were simply up to 3 or 4 people sharing the same phone line. When you made a call in those days you picked up your phone and listened for others talking and if the line was clear you dialed your number. However as was sometimes the case one talkative soul was always on the phone and you never get your call out. That sometimes was a big pain in the butt but at other times the online hen party rivals any computer chat room of today. It was after all real live local gossip. Sometimes I wonder if people didn't purposely spred a bit of gossip online just for flavor if nothing else. I am reminded of the old TV show HEE HAW where one of the songs they sang included the phrase, "Were not ones to spread gossip so you better listen close the first time."

Grandma still had the same phone number and party line until she died in 1994 and her number was 837 -4915. Her last few years she had a private line by default as there was simply no one else to share it with. She was never charged for a private line. Grandma did her share of listnening in and often times I seen her at her kitchem wall phone listeneing in and motioining for me to be quiet as she was on the phone, well not on her call but someone elses. Slaming the storm door of yelling, Hi Grandma would have been pretty obvious. For many years she shared her line with the Boyers and then the Ricketts that rented the Boyer place for a few years. She learned a lot of local stuff via those tapped conversations and indeed in that era when one went to visit a "sick aunt" in a distant place it was code for she was having a child out of wedlock.

I remember Grandma running across a lady in Canal Winchester in Conrad's Market once while I was shopping with her. I remember Grandma giving her giving her a hug and saying hi and mentioing to the lady you have been threw a lot. The only thing I was told she was away visiting her aunt. Did she learn of the odeal on the phone. They both grinned when a certian guy's name was brought up. Perhaps he was the father of more than one child?

In that Era things were a bit different and party lines still worked, Smart people kept their business off the line and others used it as the underground social network of the time. I suspect more good than harm came from the use of a party line as it was also somewhat like a coffessional as well. I can remember everyone on Grandma's Line haveing Christmas Chats and exchanging greetings and even talking among them selves which familes need a little Christmas cheer.