Remember Those Live Phone Operator Voices?

The Reason For My Faith ^ | 3/29/21 | Unknown

[NetAddicted]

BOOKMARK!

[OneVike]

LOL, they probably are. I can see them trying to go to court to garnish her wages in 20 years for the back rent. LOL

[Campion]

Your rotary phones will still work! (I restore them for fun.) You can still slam down the receiver. I cannot, alas, connect you to the “Information Please” lady.

[Campion]

When power goes off, I still have service, because the old phones worked off the small charge that is in the phone line.

Actually, analog phones were powered off gigantic lead-acid batteries at the central office. That's why they worked even if your power went out. Eventually the lead-acid batteries would discharge too, but that would take days.

[SamAdams76]

Growing up they had the “411” number which was meant for information. It was intended of course to get phone numbers for people or businesses you wanted to call. But we kids would call them and ask them questions like “who was the president in 1820” or “where did I leave my house key” and things like that. The operators on the other end usually had a good sense of humor about it. Usually.

[OneVike]

My grandmothers maiden name was Holt. She married my Grandfather who is a Carpenter. I have a book called Homestead Fever. Below is a pic I took from the book. It was taken in 1913

Long story short on them, they were slave holders in South Carolina. They headed out West after the Civil War. Lost some ancestors on both sides. My Grandfathers grandfather fought for the North, and lost 3 brothers. They were from North Carolina, and headed West after the war.

Fast forward to about 1920, and my Grandmother Bernadine Holt married Clarence Carpenter. Just two generations earlier they were shooting at each other in the war.

An interesting thing, the Holts of Television news reports, are from the same part as my Grandmothers grandparents were. Chances are, their ancestors were slaves of mine. Yet they were decent slave owners.

Any way, wonder if the telephone operator was from the same area? Do you know anything more about her, other than her name?

[Flick Lives]

How many cookies did Andrew eat? ANdrew 8-8000!

[OneVike]

That was a fairly good movie. I was forced to watch it with my wife. I did only because I have always liked Sandra Bullock.

Talk about hormonal problems. LOL

[OneVike]

My Grandparents refused to do that.

Too funny. I forgot until you mentioned it.

[OneVike]

That’s the operator must have had a slow moment to be able to call back.

[P.O.E.]

My Mom would put a dime in my sneaker. When I was ready for her to come pick me up from the pool, I would ring three times & hang up (and get the dime back). That was the signal

[OneVike]

Until I recently moved to Idaho in 2019, we had the same number for 30 years.

[1_Rain_Drop]

"Your rotary phones will still work! (I restore them for fun.)"

Really?!!!

I'll bring one back the next time I visit mom.

From what I recall, there is nothing at the end of the wire. Would it then be connected directly to the jack box?

[Ann Archy]

If I wanted to know the temperature in Los Angeles or some other place, I would just call an operator there and they would always tell me. And I don’t remember ANY man being an operator!

[21twelve]

I can’t remember what I had for dinner last night, but growing up I recall WAlnut 6-2043. I was born in 1960. I think the use of WAlnut must be from way back in my very young memory listening to my parents use it.

[Tucker39]

I’ll be 82 in August. I enlisted 2 weeks before my 18th birthday and my parents had to sign for me. Then while in Japan I requested a transfer farther south. In order to get it I had to extend my enlistment 11 months, which I did in a heartbeat. My 4 years in the Army was a great experience. Wouldn’t trade it for anything.

[OneVike]

Wow, interesting. My time was “73” to “76” Army. Mannheim Germans, then Ft Banning GA.

I dropped out in the 9th, at 16. My Mom tried to enlist me, but I barely looked 16, so they said no. I then decided to join the traveling Carnival show because I was not going to go back to school. After the Summer was over I turned 17 and joined on my own accord.

[Tucker39]

No, I think it was 12 and 12. I never knew of any other operators; just Nettie and Ordella. I think Nettie was an “old maid”, but Ordella was married and had a daughter. It was a neat little town. Mostly Scotch-Irish. Right on the Mason-Dixon Line. I was told that when Billy Penn parcelled out the land, he intentionally put a strip of Scotch-Irish Presbyterians along that section of the M-D Line as a buffer between the Germanic Lutherans farther north and the Catholics just across the line in Maryland. My great...grandparents came from Germanic Switzerland in 1750 and were granted 50 acres of land 20 miles north, in the middle of York County.

[left that other site]

17 years old...working the 8-2 Graveyard shift AT&T Long Lines at 185 Franklin Street in Boston.

I talked down a suicide at 1:00AM...There was no 911 back then, so he dialed “0” and got me.

[firebrand]

I had a Butterfield 8 number in my younger days when I lived on the Upper East Side. Hated to move and lose that number.

Even though I was moving to Murray Hill.