Number Please
In the early 1940’s telephones in
Fayetteville were very primitive. The operator was signaled
by cranking a small magneto mounted on the wall near the
telephone. The magneto only signaled the operator.
Communication was operated by batteries usually mounted
just below the magneto. It was necessary to replace these
from time to time. When signaled the operator would answer,
“Number Please.” The caller would give the operator a
number and operator would then make the connection and ring
the number. It was not uncommon for people to call by name
or location rather than by number. Often the operator would
get a request like, “Ring the house” or “Ring Mother’s”. It
was necessary for the operator to periodically monitor the
connections to disconnect parties no longer talking.
Because of this monitoring operators often knew more than
they should know about community “secrets.” It’s amazing
how professional these operators were. These “secrets” were
never told to the public and that’s true even today! My
mother, Helen Brown, was an operator during this time. She
worked as an operator until the local telephone system
converted to dial around 1950.
An operator was always on duty, day and night. There was a
folding cot kept in the telephone office for use by the
operator on night duty. After around 11:00 at night the
operator would turn on an alarm designed to wake her up if
calls were made after that time and go to sleep. In those
days few people made calls after 11 P.M. knowing that the
operator had retired for the night.
Any call made to a number outside the local one hundred or
so telephones was considered “long distance” and a
surcharge was accessed for each three minutes of talk time.
All long distance calls were routed through Atlanta and
there were only two long distance lines available. A three
minute call to Atlanta cost ten cents.
The telephone office was located in a house at the corner
of Highway 54 and Church Street . The Chief Operator, a
kind of supervisor, lived in this same house with her
family. Miss Evelyn Hightower was Chief Operator during
this time until she married and moved to Gainesville. She
was replaced by Hartley Donaldson who later married Hue
Garrison. Mrs. Garrison was the last of the Chief
Operators. After that the system became a dial system and
the local operator was no longer needed. Never again did we
hear that familiar “Number please.”
A few years before my mother’s death I found that she could
still recall most of the numbers of people and businesses
having telephones at that time. I asked her to make a list
of these and you will find it by clicking on the link
below. I thought some of you might enjoy seeing them again.
Some she could not remember. If you remember any of the
missing numbers please contact me. I would like to have a
complete list.
Telephone Numbers