I remember our first phone on our farm at Streamstown in the 1950’s. It was a wooden box with what they called a candlestick receiver which hung on the side of the phone, and a separate transmitter piece we spoke into, found on the front of the phone, as well as two bells and a crank. To reach the Telephone Exchange Operator for our area (located in Marwayne), the crank would be turned around a few times so the bells made one loud ring. If there was an emergency or fire, the crank would be turned several times and everyone on the line would know to listen in. If the Operator was calling your location, she would dial the area identifier prefix and then your phone number.
Our phone number was R 512. The “R” stood for rural and “5” would be our area identifier. We were on a party line so all phones on the line would ring simultaneously when a call was made. Each household would listen for their ring. Our ring was 1 long (one complete turn of the crank) and 2 shorts (2 short turns of the crank). The phone line was managed by the Parkview Mutual Telephone Company.
When we moved to Paradise Valley in 1961, phone service management was through Merton Mutual Telephone Co. We had a wooden box wall phone and were part of a large party line. I remember hearing someone breathing on the phone listening in to our conversations (or “rubbernecking” as my Mom called it). There was no privacy on that party line! If you wanted to start a rumor, that was the quickest way. No doubt in my mind that some of our prankster neighbors played the odd practical joke! “Who did you say was pregnant?!”
I remember walking or riding my horse over the hills across country to deliver an occasional message to our neighbors who had no phone but were always grateful and welcomed a sit-down visit with fresh cookies.
According to Google, Alberta Government Telephones (AGT) began installing underground lines in 1967. I can’t remember the year they reached our area, but our new line was installed. Our phone number was 4 digits, 2431. The party line was discontinued, and we were privileged to have our own private line. That was great timing because for the next several years, there were teenage girls in our house who liked to “park” on the phone (in Mom’s words)! With only one phone in the house, she had to set time limits! Gently put; there were the odd disgruntled moments!
Our original phone was replaced by a rotary dial wall phone with a handset receiver. Rotary dial phones were replaced in the 1970’s with push-button touch-tone desk phones or wall phones. We were modernized!
As an adult, my husband and I farmed with my parents starting in 1976, moving a mobile home onto the home quarter. We had a phone line installed. In 1985, we built a new house on the same location. Since there was no building to put our phone in while our house was under construction, we built a box up on the yard light pole and we set up our temporary phone to keep it out of the weather. We felt a bit like Oliver Wendell Douglas in the weekly sitcom, “Green Acres” running to take a phone call. We didn’t have to climb up the pole like he did; ours was shoulder height!
By 1991, Telus took over our phone service.
A family friend who was a telephone Operator for many years, told us her job changed constantly. Phone numbers, equipment and technology evolved over the decades with increasing demand. Between 1940 and 2008, each upgrade added more numbers to dial, starting from the short 3-digit numbers in the 40’s, to 4-digits, to 7-digits and a full 10-digit dialed phone number by 2008.
Cell phones were introduced long before we purchased our first one. “Cell service” was a problem. New cell phone towers and boosters made a difference, but there are still “dead” areas. Today, we wonder what we did without them; they do business transactions, take pictures, play movies and unfortunately, distract entire generations.
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