By the mid-1930s, telephone service was a staple for the folks in rural Nebraska. But, unless you were a business, they were all party lines. This meant that there would be as many as 10 and sometimes 20 subscribers on one line.

Each family on the party line was assigned a number which translated into two ‘shorts' and one ‘long', or one ‘short' and one ‘long', or a ‘long' and two ‘shorts', etc. Eventually phone books were published.

The telephone lines were strung on wooden poles along the country roads. Glass insulators kept the wires from touching the poles and grounding out. These wires were attached to each individual home to provide the service. It was not uncommon for the phone lines to go down during a bad winter storm and leave the entire area isolated.

In many small towns the phone headquarters was located in a building along Main Street. Sometimes it was above the bank or grocery store. The operator, called "Central" oftentimes had her apartment there so she could provide 24-hour service, if needed.

It was necessary to go to the telephone office to make a long distance call. Central was given the number and she would work with other phone companies to patch the call through over a series of connections to the final destination. The conversation between the two people then took place right there in the phone company office with no individual privacy at all.

The telephones themselves were wooden boxes approximately 15 inches wide x 24 inches long. They were mounted to the wall in the home. To make a call you lifted the receiver from its cradle on the left side and put it to your ear.

You positioned yourself to speak into the mouthpiece mounted on the front. If you knew the number of rings to reach someone on your party line, you appropriately turned the little crank on the right side for the family you wanted.

If you needed to talk to someone not on your party line, you turned the little crank for a ‘long' and you would reach the Central. She would answer with "number, please" or "operator" and you would tell her the number you wanted to call and she would connect you with that party line and ring the appropriate number of ‘longs' or ‘shorts' to reach the family you wanted.

The problem was, of course, when one phone rang, every phone on that party line also rang. So everybody had an opportunity to listen in on everybody else's conversations. This practice was known as "rubbering."

Some folks even got pretty clever about rubbering and discovered if they simply let the receiver fall the entire length of the cord and into a stone crock, it would amplify what was being said and they could listen and still go about what they were doing.

If there was an emergency that you wanted to make everyone on the party line aware of, like a fire, a severe storm, an accident, or someone being injured and in need of help, you simply kept turning the little crank for a looooooong time. This was the generally accepted method that everyone on that party line knew they should pick up and listen and take whatever action was necessary.

Sometimes friends or family members would work out a system whereby at exactly the same time each afternoon both would pick up the phone and begin to visit, knowing that their friend was on the other end.

There are lots of stories - true or not - about being on a party line.

There is the story of two women talking on a party line and one would say, "Be careful what you say, Dorothy might be listening." And Dorothy said, "I am not" and hung up or there would be the slightest ‘click' which would indicate that Dorothy knew she had been discovered and would hang up.

Another story about a young man calling Mary Jane for a dance date and she turned him down so he told Central "Please ring Sarah Smith." Central replied, "She's already got a date, too." Or a customer asked Central to ring Bob Olson and Central said, "He's out in the field harvesting and his wife is at the Ladies Sewing Circle today."

So, everyone knew everyone else's business and ‘Central' could be a walking newspaper, if she chose to be. Some saw all this as being nosey while others saw it as just being neighborly.

If this has jogged your memory, Delores Lintel would be pleased to hear from you. 5600 Cloudburst Lane; Lincoln, NE. Her email address: little-red-hen@juno.com