Telephone Tales with Switchboard Operator Lula Anderson

Transcribed by Jerome Kazlauskas

Lula Anderson  0:03  
My grandfather's number was 5-1-F-1-5, so his ring was a one long ring and five shorts. I totally against having just cell phones; I also have a landline and I have a phone in case the electric goes off. I still have a phone and I tell people to do that and they think, "I'm crazy," which I probably am.

Brett Barry  0:25  
Before cell phones, before touchtone, before dial tone even ... if you wanted to make a phone call, you'd pick up the receiver and talk to an operator. If that call was placed in the Catskills in the late forties through early sixties, Lula Anderson might have been working the switchboard. Lula invited me to her home in Greene County, where she recounted tales of the telephone and growing up in the Catskills. I'm Brett Barry and this is "Kaatscast: The Catskills Podcast."

Lula Anderson  0:59  
My name is Lula Anderson. I'm from Ashland, New York, and I've lived here all my life. I was born here, 1931, and I'm still here.

Brett Barry  1:11  
What was it like growing up here?

Lula Anderson  1:13  
Well, rural. But, family ... we were poor, but we didn't know we were poor because everybody that I knew was in the same condition. We didn't have store bought; much of anything. Everything was either grown here or made here. Your parents made everything did everything for you. My father and mother lived where the Cave Mountain Motel is and my grandfather had a hotel next door called "The Maples." My father was the farmer. Well, he was also my grandfather's handyman. They had horses and took them out to different hotels for riding purposes and that was my father's deal. He did all of that until we moved to the farm, and then he was a farmer for the rest of the time.

Brett Barry  1:59  
How did you meet your husband?

Lula Anderson  2:00  
I met my husband when I worked for the telephone company. It was in 1957/58 when IBM was just beginning to come into Kingston and the telephone company was building on, making more lines for the ... for IBM and they needed operators and a whole bunch of us went to Kingston and my husband was working for Western Electric in Hartford, Connecticut, and he came to Kingston and that was when we all got together and knew each other.

Brett Barry  2:33  
Before we get into telephones, tell me a little bit more about growing up here and your childhood and what kind of things you did for fun.

Lula Anderson  2:39  
Well, we ... I don't know about fun, fun. We worked on the farm even as ... as little children. We had our chores to do with the things we did was mostly family. My family ... both sides of the family were musical, so if there was a holiday or a get-together, a family ... we always had dinner, and then after dinner, it was time for music to be played and singing and ... and everybody played a different instrument and it was always family together. I had an aunt who lived right next door to the Maples, where we lived and she and her husband had ... had a big hotel called "The Bump House," which is now in Cooperstown. It's the Bump Museum and so with that we spent a lot of time at her home and I had a lot of school friends and we would get together and go to their houses. Within the school, we had dances and things like that, but socially you didn't have the time to do because you're working most of the time.

Brett Barry  3:43  
And this town is Ashland ...

Lula Anderson  3:44  
This is Ashland.

Brett Barry  3:45  
... which is Greene County?

Lula Anderson  3:46  
Greene County. It's always been here. It was a dry town for many, many, many, many years. No bars, no ... no drinking, unless you did it ... undercover ... but no, there was ... it was a dry town and it was all farm towns. Farms everywhere.

Brett Barry  4:06  
How did you get into the telephone business?

Lula Anderson  4:09  
When I was a senior, I believe the local telephone company, which was Ma Bell, as we called it ... had an apprentice ... I'll say, "apprentice," and they decided that we would go and learn the business, so that we could work for them. There's maybe five or six of us that year and we worked two hours, two days a week, and then half a day on Saturday, learning how to be a telephone operator, and then after I graduated and I continued to work there, they had no jobs for us and I went to Albany and worked there, and then came back and worked in Windham again. Windham was a hotel ... place on the mountaintop. Every other big building was a hotel, so as soon as Memorial Day came, the town swelled to be big and every hotel was open, and then our business of the telephone company was there and they need it to help. In the wintertime, they did not need only just a few people.

Brett Barry  5:15  
So what years were you an operator for Ma Bell?

Lula Anderson  5:18  
I worked from 1948-1960. Well, when they stopped and I think that's '65.

Brett Barry  5:27  
When he said that they stopped ...

Lula Anderson  5:28  
... when they went dial ...

Brett Barry  5:30  
... they went to a dial.

Lula Anderson  5:31  
Right. The towns around us. Jewett, Lexington, Prattsville ... all had dial, but we did not have that yet and some of the other towns like Tannersville and I think Hunter had some dial, but the rest did not.

Brett Barry  5:48  
So ... before dial, someone would just pick up the phone and your voice would be on there.

Lula Anderson  5:52  
The light would come on. We would pick up a chord, put into the jack that went with that number, and say, "either number please," depending on if it was here or if it was a dial, and then say, "operator," and they would tell you what they wanted and you connected them to where to whatever it was they needed or wanted.

Brett Barry  6:12  
Was there a jack for each number?

Lula Anderson  6:14  
It had a jack for each line.

Brett Barry  6:16  
For each line.

Lula Anderson  6:17  
My grandfather's number was 5-1-F-1-5, so his ring was a one long ring and five shorts, but you didn't have everybody like maybe you had one long and one short, two shorts, whatever, and the person that the ... in their home knew what their ring was and they picked it up unless they wanted to be nosy and they picked up and listen to somebody else talking.

Brett Barry  6:44  
So your phone could be ringing quite a bit then and it wasn't necessarily for you. It was for someone on that line and you would only know by how many rings ... your phone.

Lula Anderson  6:52  
Right.

Brett Barry  6:53  
Generated.

Lula Anderson  6:53  
Right.

Brett Barry  6:54  
And you were responsible for that. How would you generate the rings?

Lula Anderson  6:57  
We had a little key that you pushed to ring and we had to ring a lot of things: had to ring the noon siren ... not from there, but from the button. We had to write "ring," if there was a fire, you had to know where the fire was ... until the firemen where to go, so it was really a hard thing sometimes to do because the button to ring the whistle was on the other side of the room and twelve o'clock was okay, but if there was a fire ... if somebody called in and said, "There's a fire on Mitchell Hollow such in ... such a place." You'd have to go ring the button, and then go back to all the firemen calling in to say, "Where's the fire?" and you have to tell everybody where the fire was. It was sometimes stressful, and then we had to keep track of all the long-distance calls on a little slip of paper: where it was from, where it went to, and all that and how long they talked and everything, so you had to keep track of all that.

Brett Barry  6:57  
Were they billed for time?

Lula Anderson  7:05  
Mm-hmm.

Brett Barry  7:08  
But that's a lot to juggle.

Lula Anderson  7:12  
And then, you also had the phone booths because they didn't have phones in all the rooms at the hotels, so you had the phone booths and you had to keep track of the money on that. How much it cost to go here or there? A call was 10 cents locally, but then you had long-distance and you had to put down ... if they put in quarters or nickels or dimes to pay for it and they could only talk three minutes, and then you had to tell him at that time was up. If they want to talk longer, it had to pay. You had to keep track of all that.

Brett Barry  7:48  
When you mentioned these lines that multiple houses or customers were on the same line, is that the same thing as a party line? I've heard that term.

Lula Anderson  8:30  
Yes.

Brett Barry  8:30  
So that just means that ...

Lula Anderson  8:33  
There was more than one person on the line.

Brett Barry  8:43  
And you could pick up and hear each other's conversations. So what would happen if I was on someone else's line and I picked up the phone to make a call and somebody was speaking, I would just have to wait, hang up?

Lula Anderson  8:53  
Right.

Brett Barry  8:54  
Try again?

Lula Anderson  8:55  
Mm-hmm.

Brett Barry  8:55  
Yeah.

Lula Anderson  8:56  
Wait till it was free, but then they didn't use the phone that much. You had people who were ... I suppose nosy. When they heard somebody else's phone ring, they would pick up just to listen, but they were busy. They didn't have time.

Brett Barry  9:09  
So at the time, long conversations weren't necessarily happening on the phone. It was more of a quick way to check in with somebody.

Lula Anderson  9:17  
Right.

Brett Barry  9:18  
So take me through the process. If I pick up my phone a few seconds later, I'll hear a voice?

Lula Anderson  9:24  
Yes, well, we had the switchboard and we had cords. The cord that went into the phone number and wherever they were calling to, and when the light would come on, you put the cord into that jack and say, "operator" or "number please," and then "thank you" and you would put them into the calling number and then ring. You'd have to ring the key in order to get the line to connect and we had lights at the bottom and, you know, when they hung up because those lights would go off.

Brett Barry  9:53  
And then, you could disengage the cord from the jacks.

Lula Anderson  9:56  
Right. You had to remember the numbers: a lot of the numbers. We had a phone directory that was on above us that you could look up people's numbers and they would call and say, "I just need the doctor, I need this person, you know, so you'd have to look it up maybe," or would be coming in to you from another town and you'd have to look up for them in front of us ... under glass, we had the different towns and how to get there ... through Catskills, through Albany, through whatever ... and the code to go through there and you had to know those, but you had to look it up under your sheet if you didn't remember. But ... after you were there a while, you begin to remember the people's numbers: not local like family numbers, but the doctor's number and the hotel numbers. You got to know what they were there without having to look them up.

Brett Barry  10:49  
When people heard your voice, did they recognize you or say hello sometimes? If it was a quiet day, do you have your own conversation?

Lula Anderson  10:54  
Well, time say ... it was children that would be like at school. They want to call home. They didn't have any money. They pick up the phone. I want ... I'd like to talk to my mother and I don't have, you know, that type of thing and a friendly familiar, but you didn't really have time to talk-talk. But, you could be friendly and most everybody was.

Brett Barry  11:18  
Yeah.

Lula Anderson  11:19  
And you knew the kids in town; you knew who they were and ...

Brett Barry  11:22  
If a kid at school needed to call home and didn't have money or you ... if there was anything you were able to do ...

Lula Anderson  11:27  
I would always figure it out. Figure it out. It was a very nice time. It really was.

Brett Barry  11:36  
Do you remember what your starting pay was?

Lula Anderson  11:38  
No, but I remember working every day, every minute that I could possibly work and got to come home with $100. It was a lot and that would be like five days, eight hours.

Brett Barry  11:51  
$100 a week.

Lula Anderson  11:39  
If I worked every minute or every day, it wasn't often. Usually, it was about $80 or $90.

Brett Barry  11:59  
You mentioned different towns on the switchboard. How large was the area that you were in charge of?

Lula Anderson  12:03  
We did the Windham area, which is Maplecrest, Hensonville, Windham, and then we had you at Lexington and Prattsville, Ashland is included in that.

Brett Barry  12:17  
So if someone called from Phoenicia, they would have their own operator ...

Lula Anderson  12:21  
Yes.

Brett Barry  12:21  
... and they would contact you?

Lula Anderson  12:23  
And the operator would contact us to ring the number and you take your cord and when you stood up putting it in the jack, you would tap it, and if it was busy, that's what you would tell them as busy. You could deal with it. The line was in use somewhere ... right there at the switchboard or however.

Brett Barry  12:39  
And then, you just have to tell the customer to call back later?

Lula Anderson  12:42  
That was busy and they would try it again ... every five minutes until they got the number.

Brett Barry  12:47  
There are no busy signals, then there's no ...

Lula Anderson  12:49  
No.

Brett Barry  12:49  
... no call waiting.

Lula Anderson  12:52  
No, no, no call. You can ... you can wait, but you don't call.

Brett Barry  12:58  
And then, dial came in what year ... 1960?

Lula Anderson  13:01  
I think it was '65.

Brett Barry  13:04  
Each person would physically dial the number and it would automatically connect, so there was no need for the human operator.

Lula Anderson  13:10  
The only thing they needed the operator for was for a long-distance.

Brett Barry  13:14  
Okay.

Lula Anderson  13:14  
Locally, they could dial their own. One of our biggest customers other than the hotels was the Greendell Packing in Prattsville. Their switchboard operator would call you and you knew you'd have to do long-distance for her and you people didn't call long-distance, except in the summertime, if they were here as a guest at a hotel, then they would be calling home and doing that. But, otherwise, it was just local local.

Brett Barry  13:39  
What was the longest distance? Do you remember?

Lula Anderson  13:42  
Oh, no! I ... I had connected people to overseas. I think it was like $12 to call wherever over.

Brett Barry  13:49  
And that was just another series of codes or longer numbers?

Lula Anderson  13:53  
And you go to the ... like New York and the operator there would connect you to wherever.

Brett Barry  14:01  
So the caller might have to wait on the line for a bit for all those connections to be made?

Lula Anderson  14:04  
Right ... or you would tell him that you'd call him back as soon as you had the party, if he had the phone number and all that. You'd call him back as soon as you had it.

Brett Barry  14:13  
Wow!

Lula Anderson  14:14  
As soon as it went to dial, we were finished in Windham. They close the office and the girls ... some of them went to Catskill or went to other places. I was in Meriden and didn't want to continue to do that and I had already been there 18 years or more, so it was enough of that. You know, now I think back maybe it would have been better if I'd stayed to 20, but didn't. But, I wasn't about to travel to Catskill every day to work.

Brett Barry  14:46  
And so, one dial came in operators were still standing by for long-distance or ...

Lula Anderson  14:53  
Just long-distance.

Brett Barry  14:54  
Just long-distance and at that point, you'd have to dial zero.

Lula Anderson  14:57  
Yep, and then when the office went out here, then it automatically switched them over and they didn't. You know, it went right to Catskill or right wherever.

Brett Barry  15:06  
I don't think you can even get an operator on the phone anymore.

Lula Anderson  15:09  
No, even when you want information or you can't, it's all everything is automated and they don't seem to understand me. I keep saying, "Am I speaking a foreign language that you don't know what I'm saying?" because if you don't say it exact, it's not there.

Audio  15:25  
For a business or government listing, please press one or stay on the line. For resident's listing, please press two.

Lula Anderson  15:33  
I totally against having just cell phones. If I want to call somebody and I don't know their number, then how do I find the number? Because there is no directory for cell phones and that really annoys me. I don't know how you'd have a cell phone directory, but it would be a good thing if you could find out how to find people. I also have a landline and I have a phone in case the electric goes off. I still have a phone and I tell people to do that and they think, "I'm crazy," which I probably am.

Brett Barry  16:05  
What do you think that we lose today by texting people rather than picking up a phone and having a conversation?

Lula Anderson  16:13  
I really think we lose almost everything. You don't get the influx in their voice, you don't get their feelings you don't get, you just get the words, and maybe those words are not exactly is the person would have said it to you: face-to-face or on the phone. I think we lost so much of that. I have a young friend who texts with her mother, and she said, "Her mother gets upset or gets annoyed at something." She said, "I say and I didn't say that. I texted but I didn't say that," and she gets it wrong and I think that's what we're losing the personal contact with people.

Brett Barry  16:56  
Let's say ... you've lived here your whole life. What are some of the biggest changes?

Lula Anderson  17:01  
I think the biggest changes are the loss of farms and the loss of hotels and as much as I enjoyed the area and see the changes: good and bad. We lost the ... also the personal contact with people and we had hotels everywhere: big ones, little ones ... as a young person worked at a lot of the different hotels, and at that time when you rented a room at my grandfather's, I think they ... it would cost $23 or $28 a week and you got your room and three meals a day and you stayed for a week or maybe a month and you came by boat or however ... they had the Hudson River Day Line that brought them up from New York, and then they stayed. Most of the hotels like the Sugar Maple's provided you with everything. It didn't matter what you needed or wanted it was there and they had ... they had 500 guests, so that's a lot and we lost a lot of that, of course all the hotels except a couple are gone in Windham.

Brett Barry  18:23  
Is there still a sense of community here?

Lula Anderson  18:26  
Yes, but I don't feel it's the same and this has changed in the last ... maybe 10 years. You don't know anybody. You can't go uptown and see somebody on the street and know who they are because it's all new changing all the time.

Brett Barry  18:41  
Second homeowners?

Lula Anderson  18:43  
Yeah, a lot.

Brett Barry  18:44  
What do you do now to occupy your time?

Lula Anderson  18:47  
Oh my gosh, alright. I am a lay speaker; lay servant for the church and I speak whenever I'm asked to. My gift is to tell stories: Bible stories, mostly. But, I tell all the stories. I belong to the Eastern Star. I'm on a committee there. That's the women of the Masons and I am President of the Golden Age Club.

Brett Barry  19:15  
And that's a historical association?

Lula Anderson  19:17  
No, it's just a group of older people. Then, we got into having a hot lunch and I think that's why we have more now than ever and that also brought more men to the group because they like to eat and they will come and stay and do whatever ... just to be haven and it's very good, too, also because a lot of the local people may not have a hot meal every day and so that do that. I have a group of people that I call every day. Are they well? Do they need anything? Can I get them anything? I can't personally maybe do it, but I can know somebody who will help her do whatever and to just well-check up five minutes. That's, you know, are you okay?

Brett Barry  20:03  
So you're still doing the same thing you are doing as a switchboard operator.

Lula Anderson  20:06  
I am still at it.

Brett Barry  20:09  
Connecting with people ...

Lula Anderson  20:10  
Never and it doesn't stop. The church is important to me in Ashland, so we're ... we're doing that all the time: dinners and benefits, anything to raise money to keep the church going, and we have the food pantry. I did arts and crafts for years and years and years, and I ... now with a macular, I can't see to do that. So he's just passing it along, doing what you can.

Brett Barry  20:16  
While you're keeping very busy for a 92-year-old and doing really great things.

Lula Anderson  20:34  
I think the biggest thing is to be busy: mentally and physically. If you sit and think about yourself and worry about yourself, then you get sicker and sicker and I'm sorry if people are sick. But, sometimes you can make yourself sick. Like over this holiday, I was alone all the time and I could sit and cry because I was alone, but that doesn't get you anywhere and tomorrow comes ... what do you want it there? It still comes.

Brett Barry  21:14  
What's your hope for the New Year, Lula?

Lula Anderson  21:20  
Have people be more family-oriented, not so aloof with other people. I would like to see less me with everything and find more joy in your life and I know money is important, but I think we dwell on ... on that. We don't dwell on people as much as we should and I would like to see more of that. Like, you know, you ... you knew somebody and did ... have you talked to them in a long time, if you called them in a long time? Do you know how they are? You don't even know if they're alive or dead. We're supposed to be here to make this place better not worse. I think it's too much me.

Audio  22:07  
[MUSIC]

Lula Anderson  22:10  
But, can ... what do I know? What do I know? It's a good day. That's all I know. The sun is shining. It's a good day.

Brett Barry  22:27  
Kaatscast is a production of Silver Hollow Audio. Be sure to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts, so you never miss an episode. You can also find us at kaatscast.com and on Instagram @kaatscast. Many thanks to the Nicholas J. Juried Family Foundation for their generous support of this podcast. Thanks also to the Mountain Eagle, covering Delaware, Greene, and Schoharie counties, including brands for the local region such as the Windham Weekly, Schoharie News, Cobleskill Herald, and Catskills Chronicle, including a weekly column by Lula Anderson. For more information, call 518-763-6854 or email: mountaineaglenews@gmail.com. I'm your host, Brett Barry. Thanks for listening and we'll see you next time!