NUMBER, PLEASE

                    
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NUMBER, PLEASE

Across the Fence 



By Arvord Abernethy 



I dropped by the open-house of the new telephone building Thursday, and who should be sitting behind the reception desk but Mrs. Willie Hatfield. To us who have been here for some time it looked so natural to see her there expressing the same friendliness and composure as always. Whether she was helping a customer understand his telephone bill or helping a new central girl to understand the switchboard, Mrs. Hatfield was always calm and collected. 

She began to work for the telephone company here in Hamilton in 1929 when it was located over the American Legion Hall on South Bell. When the new building was built on South Rice, across from the present Post Office, everyone felt that Hamilton was really going to town. To me, it was interesting to go in there and watch those five “Number Please” girls plugging in circuits and flipping switches. Even though there were hundreds of holes for the plugs, those girls could automatically connect the right number each time. Mrs. Hatfield continued as office manager for the company until 1966, completing over 37 years of service to them. 

After some delicious refreshments, I asked the special privilege of getting to go back and see the switchboards and equipment for handling this dialing system. Fonzy Williamson, Customer Service Supervisor, gladly showed me the equipment, and it is something else. 

Instead of the five “Number Please” girls, there are five columns of machinery that does the dialing. Each column was probably about 12 feet high and the same in length and some 2 ˝ feet thick. They weren’t saying “number please”, but every time someone dialed, you could hear the machine chattering away. Fonzy showed me one of the units each phone has, showing how each number you dialed would be selected. I’ll not take time to explain it to you, as you probably wouldn’t understand it: I didn’t. 

Fonzy showed me the girl who gives you the time and temperature when you dial 6-8171. She is kept in a black box, so I didn’t get to see her, I asked if Bill Barkley had to come and reset the clocks every time the electricity went off or we changed to Daylight Saving Time, and he said that was all done automatically from the Time and Temperature office in Georgia. 

Fonzy showed me a row of large batteries that take over the instant the electricity goes off so there is no break in phone or time service. 

There is so much sophisticated machinery back there I couldn’t comprehend it all. I was like a fellow who was working for me out there on the ranch (name furnished on request); I was trying to explain some machinery to him, and he said, “I never did know much about machinery, the only machinery that I ever worked with was a cotton sack and a hoe.” 

I couldn’t keep from thinking of the phone service we had when I was a kid. We were among the first to get a rural line out our way. There was only one wire that came to the house, so you had to have a ground wire to complete the circuit. If the weather got too dry, you had to take a bucket of water and give the soil around the ground wire a good soaking. In the winter time your telephone line would go to “singing” if there was a change in the weather. 

Back then very few long distance calls were made; it was usually a call of bad news. I remember one time we got a long distance call, and as usual, everyone on the line wanted to know what had happened. So many had their receiver off the hook we couldn’t hear, so we had to go over to another line out of town to complete the call. Fortunately, it was good news. 

Here is an example of how long distance calls would be made. You would tell your local operator the person and place you wanted to call. She would get you a line to Gatesville and the operator there would get you a line to Waco, and the same procedure on to Fort Worth and on and on. It could easily take 30 minutes to get a call through. 

Now with this direct dialing, it is like calling someone here in town. Now people make long distance calls just to chat. It is so easy to reach out and touch someone.

Shared by Roy Ables

ACROSS THE FENCE 


 
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People and Places: Gazetteer of Hamilton County, TX
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Copyright © March, 1998
by Elreeta Crain Weathers, B.A., M.Ed.,  
(also Mrs.,  Mom, and Ph. T.)

A Work In Progress