In last night's post I referenced a 1944 Park Ridge phone book. These old documents are fun to look through. I found my grandparents phone number in the book (click on the photo for a larger image) and underlined it in red (not in the actual book, just on the photo!) The phone numbers back then were much different than we have today. For instance my grandparents phone "number" was 391-J. Back then you had operators that would connect you - no direct dial. And late at night the operator might have fallen asleep and you would have to drive to the telephone company and knock on the window to wake her up! When I was a child I can remember that we had party lines. You'd go to call your friend, pick up the phone and people were on the line and talking. You'd have to wait, checking the phone every so often, to find when they were off and you could make your phone call. I remember when everyone got their own line and you didn't have to wait for someone to get off to make a phone call. Boy, those were the days! Now we can call from just about anywhere to anywhere using our cell phones. Technology is amazing. In fact my new blog will deal with some of that. I need to get a few more ducks in a row over the next couple of days before I release the blog. ■ More later. ■ Wednesday, April 30, 2008
History
In last night's post I referenced a 1944 Park Ridge phone book. These old documents are fun to look through. I found my grandparents phone number in the book (click on the photo for a larger image) and underlined it in red (not in the actual book, just on the photo!) The phone numbers back then were much different than we have today. For instance my grandparents phone "number" was 391-J. Back then you had operators that would connect you - no direct dial. And late at night the operator might have fallen asleep and you would have to drive to the telephone company and knock on the window to wake her up! When I was a child I can remember that we had party lines. You'd go to call your friend, pick up the phone and people were on the line and talking. You'd have to wait, checking the phone every so often, to find when they were off and you could make your phone call. I remember when everyone got their own line and you didn't have to wait for someone to get off to make a phone call. Boy, those were the days! Now we can call from just about anywhere to anywhere using our cell phones. Technology is amazing. In fact my new blog will deal with some of that. I need to get a few more ducks in a row over the next couple of days before I release the blog. ■ More later. ■ 
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Yours is much older......But I have a phone book from Plymouth, Indiana - 1957. I found both sets of grandparents, my husbands parents. Very interesting.
ReplyDeleteAnd as a kid I too remember the party lines! What fun!
Keep that phone book. Your children and their children will treasure it. History is too often lost because we throw things away. Ah, this sounds like fodder for a blog post.
ReplyDelete