Crank Phones
The farmhouse on Old Creamery Road south of Dexter, Iowa, had a crank phone, the first one I can remember. Our number was 5211, our ring was “four shorts.” Yes, a party line with several other neighbors.
We had to ring “Central” and give her the number we wanted, so she could connect our phones. When there was a fire or other emergency, Central just kept ringing on the line to get everyone’s attention, then when enough people were listening in, she’d relay the information.
The local Dexter exchange operated as a mutual company until 1960, when it was sold to the Central Iowa Rural Telephone Company. The summer of 1961, a new building (which housed the new automatic equipment) was built just north of the telephone office.
Dexter’s new dial phone system went active on May 8, 1962, with New Kellogg K-60 Crossbar Terminal Equipment, fully-selective ringing, automatic time cut-off, and colored phones available.
Dial Phones
So Dad could tear down the old farm house and build a new smaller house, we moved three miles away and rented the “Brown house,” which had an outhouse. While we lived there we got our first dial phone. I was a senior in high school.
Long-distance rates went down in the evening, so if you anticipated a longer chat with Grandma, etc., you just waited to make the call.
I soon went off to college (1962), the State College of Iowa (now the University of Northern Iowa), where communal phones were in the hallway. If a phone rang, anyone could answer it and find whoever the call was meant for, or she’d take a message and leave it for her dormmate.
One college mate, who hitchhiked back and forth to college, would call home “collect,” through the operator, after he arrived at the campus. When a family member answered, the operator said there was a collect call from him for a fictitious name, and asked if they’d accept the charges. No one by that name was available, but that way his folks knew he’d arrived okay without having to pay for phone call.
After I was married and Guy joined the US Air Force, we moved to Idaho where we lived in a trailer court. We couldn’t afford a phone so our folks would call the office, at the other end of the court. Gus or Libbie (owners) would bring us the message. We used their phone to call home, then paid them for the long-distance charge. I didn’t get a job at first because we thought Guy would be ordered somewhere else fairly quickly. He didn’t, so I got a job as a substitute teacher and we had a phone installed. Yes, he got orders for Vietnam shortly after that.
I’d always hoped to inherit the folks’ old crank phone, just for fun, but they tossed it out along with other items I’d liked as a child, such as oil lamps. “If you had to use them as a child, you’d get rid of them too,” according to my mother. I mentioned it one day when we were at Guy’s folks. His dad said there was a crank phone in the attic we could have. We’ve hauled it around ever since, but didn’t have room to display it until we added on to this house in the early 2000s.
We’ve had a landline phone in our Colorado home and also here in Iowa. Confession: I don’t chatting on the phone. When we had a den of Cub Scouts and I needed to convey messages to the families for a den meeting, I hired son Dan to make the calls. Ten cents each. It worked in those days. (As you can imagine, I really took to email!)
Recently our old landline was discontinued. Favorite Guy insisted on keeping a landline, but this atrocity they installed is so loud, and we haven’t figured out how to keep it from beeping every time you touch a button. There’s also a lag when you’re talking, just like calling Europe, making things even worse because you tend to talk over each other.
When the power went out, the old landline still worked. This one doesn’t.
Cellphones
We both have cellphones, but mine is mostly used as a camera and to check social media. I rarely use mine as a phone. Guy doesn’t either. We text a little with Dan and Renee.
A red dial phone is part of our decor, just for fun like the crank phone, and more stuff to downsize.
I don’t suppose any of you still have landline phones. . .
My grandfather had an old, nonworking crank phone in his garage, but he had had it working in his house at some point in the past. In our own house, we had a black, heavy dial phone in the dining room. (I remember as a toddler standing behind Mother as she sat talking on that phone, resting my ear on her back to hear the strange sound of her voice.) It’s funny how I can remember our first phone number, memorized when I entered first grade (922-4722, later changed to 922-3912), but can’t remember what I went upstairs to get! When Dad remodeled the kitchen, we got an avocado wall phone–still dial type. After marrying, I had a yellow wall phone in the kitchen. Then came the cell phones. We get new ones, hand-me-downs from a daughter and her husband whenever they get the new, latest-and-greatest versions. We are constantly having trouble with them as the companies update them, require different passwords, passcodes, passkeys, fingerprints, facial recognition, etc. Frustrating! Makes us long for the good ol’ days of dial phones!
What fun, Dennis. Thanks!
I enjoy your stories, Joy! This one brought back many memories for me, but your dates help give me a better timeframe for the memories. I remember my Grandparents Clausen home so well at what is now 1160 Cottonwood Ave in rural Dexter. My other grandmother also had a similar phone in NE Iowa which my cousin Edna now has. I found their phone, like the one you have pictured, and system fascinating with the long and short rings and multiple people sharing a “party” line. I grew up in Stuart and I still remember our original phone number was 102. Interestingly, when Rick and I married in 1972 and moved to our current farm in rural Atalissa, we too had a party line shared with a household of teenagers! Also, I still have a couple of the oil lamps that had been stored away in my grandparents home, which I later learned had belonged to their two daughters for their rooms. They are now prominently displayed in my entryway niche and in the dining room.
Deborah, I enjoyed your memories so much! Who were your grandparents on Cottonwood Ave? John and Nadine Shepherd lived at the north end of that road, and when I was in school, I remember Easleys south of there.
My grandparents were Walter and Alma Clausen. My dad was Dale Clausen. He was a WW II veteran and became a veterinarian on the GI bill after the war. His practice was in Stuart. We all went to Zion Lutheran Church in Dexter. My grandpa’s mother died when he was just a year old or so, but her birth name was Johanna Ohrt (daughter of Detlef Ohrt) and she married John Clausen. I think we might be distantly related through the Ohrt family.
We sure are! Thank you, Deborah. Ancestor Detlef Ohrt is the “immigrant” in The Immigrant and the Outlaw: A Collection of Stories from America’s Heartland. We were told that he sold a horse to Jesse James (the “outlaw”) and the cover story explores whether it could have happened, just SE of Dexter!
It’s cool how phones have evolved over the years. We didn’t have a phone until I was 13 or 14. We wrote letters. Even to my aunt, who was only 25 miles away. We haven’t had a landline for the past 12 years. As you, I seldom use my phone as a phone, but it is a good way to communicate, via texting and messaging.
Darlene, that reminds me that long distance calls were expensive, but the cost went down in the evening. Cheaper to send a letter!
We had a crank phone when we first moved to Colebrook, New Hampshire in 1964. They modernized the phone system shortly thereafter. We got rid of our landline once our cell phone service could connect with 911.
I didn’t think about 911. Thank you, Liz.
You’re welcome, Joy.
We share a dislike of talking over the phone, Joy! I do remember the older landline phones but we never had a crank. I’m glad you finally got a crank phone to display. It’s quite handsome!
Thanks, Lori!
I love this topic., Joy And I do remember we had a phone that looked like a frozen, black daffodil on a long stem when I was growing up. Sometime later came a rotary phone.
My husband just unearthed two photos of him using a pay phone at TGIF restaurant (now defunct in the East). He was calling me to keep in touch when he was traveling full time with his art & music shows for schools. (I’ll probably use it in a later blog post. )
Marian, I forgot about payphones. I don’t think I ever used one, but my Favorite Guy might have when he was in the Air Force. (He’s napping or I’d ask him. . . )
I remember party lines and dial phones as well. Eventually, we got a push button phone and then a “mobile” phone, which mostly sat in the charger thingie. Now, like you, I only have a cell phone. I text more than chat also. Great post.
Diana, I don’t think we ever had a push button phone.
I’m out in the boonies and my area still requires a landline
(If you go upstairs to the west end bathroom, stand up on the commode and hold your phone up by the window you might get a bar of service.)
Wow, you are in the boonies, Vero! But I bet you like it like that.
Yes Joy I really do. I have everything I need right here.
Love it!
♥ ♥ ♥
I loved your chronology of phones, Joy. I only remember having an old ugly black rotary phone that rested on a telephone chair (a chair with a narrow shelf attached to an armrest). We got it with green stamps. The chair, which was off balance with the heavy phone on the shelf, often flipped over. ☎️
Wow, Nancy, that must have been a heavy phone! Grandma Leora had a phone chair for a while.
The phone was heavy, but the chair was poorly made. After all, we got it with green stamps. 🤣
I once got a spice rack with Green Stamps!
We still have a working rotary dial phone (a Princess Phone) but I think they will be discontinuing the land line service next month. The end of an era.
Ours was discontinued last year, but someone offered this miserable substitute that needed wires in the yard and doesn’t work like a landline but uses the same number. Dan, is your Princess Phone pink? Someone gave us an off white one, which we never used, but Granddaughter Kate was happy to take it off our hands. (She’s 9.)
I have two landlines – one for business and one for pleasure.. no cell phone
Last year they cancelled the landlines everyone had used for decades! We were forced to change to the new cable ones or rely on cell phones. Bummer.