There was a time not too long ago, however, when the folks living in Nolanville - and hundreds of places just like it - had to have the patience of Job just to place a call a few hundred miles away.
Telep-hone technology was still emerging in the early 20th century, and in Nolanville it had come a long way from the first line that settlers made using barbed wire.
Pauline J. Bailey, whose parents operated the Nolanville switchboard from their home, wrote about the early days of telephone service in Nolanville in a locally published book titled, “The Way It Was - Volume II.”
“Often they (telephone subscribers) had trouble hearing (over the phone),” Mrs. Bailey wrote. “They would go outside and pour a bucket or washpan of water on the ground wire and in a few minutes this seemed to help.”
Harry Roberts, 88, who grew up in Nolanville but now lives in Belton, remembers the old home that was the hub for all the telephone traffic.
The home, on what is now Avenue H, has been gone for several years, but Roberts still has one of the phones that was used by a family in the community. It’s a wall phone with a crank on it.
In 1923, Mrs. Bailey’s parents took over management of the switchboard. There was no electricity in the home and at night a kerosene lamp was kept nearby.
The family quickly learned to keep an extra supply of lamp chimneys on hand.
“Sometimes a plug (for the switchboard) would hit it and break the chimney,” Mrs. Bailey wrote.
It took some 50 batteries to operate the board.
At one time there were 100 subscribers, each paying the 55-cent monthly dues.
“Some paid by firewood, fresh meat, or whatever we could use,” Mrs. Bailey wrote.
Long distance fees did not exist. A caller could speak to someone as far away as Brownwood for free, but the call had to be routed through every switchboard along the way, which could take all day.
Calling from Nolanville to Belton was considered a long-distance call, so the calls were routed through the Temple operator.
Teenagers were not allowed to talk on the phone late into the night - nobody was, unless there was an emergency. The switchboard was generally open from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. If there was contact made at night, it usually meant that someone in the community had died and the family wanted to notify other family members.
In 1919, Mrs. Bailey attended school for the first time. She also learned that year how to operate the switchboard system from her father, Hiram D. Justice.
Some of the rural lines had eight to 10 subscribers on a single line. Mrs. Bailey wrote that for her, one of the most memorable rural lines was the one over the Lampasas River.
“That had so many people on it,” she wrote. “When we would ring every receiver would go up.”
If the right person did not answer, the operator would tell all the people on the line to please hang up and not answer while he or she tried to put the call through again.
“Occasionally someone would say, ‘Central, they are not at home. I saw them pass going to Killeen in the buggy to sell their eggs and butter,’” wrote Mrs. Bailey.
On party lines such as Lampasas 19, switchboard operators learned to ring different subscribers in different ways. It led to fewer people picking up a call that was not meant for them. One subscriber on a line may have been distinguished with a single long ring, another four short rings.
All calls were routed through the switchboard and callers seldom asked for a number.
Many callers would engage the operator in a short conversation and then say something like “well, ring Mary for me or ring number nine or five rings on line 22, or the store.”
“Everyone knew all the gossip, or news, as they all seemed to eavesdrop or listen in,” Mrs. Bailey wrote.
promer@temple-telegram.com
