The Party Line....

[Lensmaster]

My grandparents had a farm in rural eastern Ohio. Until the farm was sold in the early 80's they had a party line. You had to keep checking to see if the line was free to make a call. And this area is Amish country. The Amish not having phones would go to a local "English" house, including my grandparents, to make a call. So when you picked up the phone it was very likely you'd here people chatting in Pennsylvania Dutch.

 

[cco23i]

My grandma had a party line in the 70's and I remember she asked me to dial the phone so she could talk to my mom, (my grandma was making noodles so her hands were full of flour) and ask her to bring more eggs. Well I just picked it up and 2 old biddies were gossiping and when I told my Gma she said tell them you have an important call. Well after much talking they finally hung up.

Scott

 

[Caity Lynn]

granny when asked to speak to a radio audience

"we have something like that where everyone listens in at home, but we call it a party line"

(I think from A Star Is Born)


I woulda hated a party line.

 

[RBH]

We were on a party line until the early 70's.

 

[kps]

We were on a party line in the 80s.

This was in rural Ontario, about 40 miles from Toronto, in one of a handful of scattered areas served by various small telephone companies not yet absorbed by Bell. Among other things, this meant that local calling was limited to the local company's lines; people one line over had to pay long distance to call across the road. We did, however, have four-digit local dialling.

When we moved there, there were not enough wires on the poles, so it was not possible to get a private line without paying to have another one strung.

A few years later, the phone company decided to put in underground lines, abandoning the overhead ones. They didn't -- wouldn't -- bury more lines than were on the poles, so it was still not possible to get a private line.

A year or two later, Bell Canada bought out the local phone company, and promptly put in their own underground lines, abandoning the previous set. They didn't -- wouldn't -- bury more lines than the previous company, so it was still not possible to get a private line.

 

[mwelch8404]

Yes we had a oak wall phone until mid 1967, on a party line. Our ring was two longs and one short.

Now that's funny... Ours was 2 longs and a short into the early 70's - in a small CA town about 50 mile from LA as the crow flies...

 

[ChadHahn]

*****************
Telephone use was quite simply, expensive, you could be making a regular wage but in comparison to today (and going back to before 25-30 years ago) local calls were pricey and long distance was astronomical.

Calling Long Distance was a big deal inside the continental US and say from the continental US to call Hawaii was the next tier up in expensive. (I watched an episode of Hawaii Five-O not too long ago and the cost of phoning stateside was a key point in a conversation.)

Calling out of the country to say Europe was a ticking time bomb of cost.
My mom called Denmark in the 60's and a roughly 25 minute call was over $75 which was A LOT of money back then.

They say the reason old chronograph wrist watches have a mark at 3 minutes is because after three minutes the cost of the phone call increased drastically. You would start your stopwatch at the beginning of the call and then end it at three minutes.

The small town in rural Nebraska I grew up in had party lines at least until the late 70s and probably later. I would hear people talking about them sometimes but I never experienced it. Our town had the same prefix for the whole town and to call anywhere in town you would just use the last digit of the prefix and then the last four numbers. Instead of 274-1234 you would just dial 4-1234. I guess when you had to use a rotary phone any time savings came in handy.

Chad