Party Line Ringing (Was: Re: Movie "Pillow Talk")

[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: My dear departed grandmother, bless her
> soul, dead now since 1978 told me about party lines and the old biddies > here in Independence/Coffeyville who had them during the 1930-40's. They > would set their phone in or upon a galvanized wash tub, then go out to > sit on the front porch on a hot summer night. Sooner or later, they > would hear the 'ticking' and 'clattering' of that wash tub as the bell > clapper on the phone would make a single strike. (Recall please that > party lines often used a system where the desired phone would ring > normally, but the other phones on the line [with their bell ringing > clappers on a different frequency] would just make a sort of feeble > 'tick sound' once and then stay silent. The old witches would be out > on their front porch trying to stay cool; one of them would hear that > greatly amplfied [by comparison because of the galvanized wash tub] > 'tick sound', excuse herself and slip inside to quietly pick up the > reciever and see _who_ had called, _who_ they were talking to, and > _what about_. They'd sit in there quietly listening to the others, and > only occassionally would another one of the biddies happen to notice > she was being spied on and angrily tell the others to get off the > line. PAT]

Are you sure harmonic ringing was used in Indeependence and Coffeyville? As far as I can remember they were both always Southwestern Bell towns, and SWBT did not use harmonic ringing at all except perhaps in an exchange recently required from a non-Bell company.

SWBT used divided ringing (ring or tip to ground), which provided for two different parties, divided polarized ringing (+/- ring or +/- tip to ground), which provided for four different parties with none of them hearing the other's ring. Beyond that they usually added codes (one ring, two rings, etc.).

In the 1930s and 1940s I believe Independence and Coffeyville were both manual, and probably had only tip and ring to distinguish parties, the others having codes.

Apropos of another thread, I notice that some Oklahoma organization or state board or agency is having a meeting or session this week in South Coffeyville, Oklahoma.

Wes Leatherock snipped-for-privacy@aol.com snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com

[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Both Independence and C'ville were always SBC towns. C'ville was cut to dial in 1956, Independence was cut to dial in 1961. I have some confusion here since my mother was born in 1922 when her parents lived in _southern Illinois_ in one of the suburbs of St. Louis. Mother said they moved to Coffeyville in 1928. To complicate matters a bit further, one of the small towns east and a bit south of Independence is _not_ SBC but was always in that rural telephone cooperative which is based further east around the Pittsburg, KS area. Grandmother is of course long since dead. But for _some_ small town telephone systems in those days, her story of setting the phone in a galvanized washtub to listen to the 'ringing' of the party-line neighbor is a logical report. Sorry I cannot be more specific. PAT]