when telephone long distance was shortwave radio. ( have a old radio with these frequencies on the dial)

[AllaN01Bear]

[OAITW r.2.0]

1. Our reality than 100 years ago.

Now look at us. Are we better for the tech in our lives? Depends, I guess.

[LeftInTX]

2. When we lived off-base in Japan, we had no phone service...period...none!

I don't know how my parents survived. We had a walkie talkie that we had with the neighbor and that was it! You couldn't use the neighbor's phone, because there no phonelines or anything! No telegraph! No nothing! Nada zip!
It's so bizarre when you think about it. If you wanted to talk to someone, you went to their house! My dad couldn't call his work even though an officer and a pilot and a weatherman. I guess if the CO needed to talk with him, they came to the house!

[applegrove]

4. I lived in a tea house on a mountain cliff in Lake Louise.

Last edited Wed Dec 18, 2024, 12:39 PM - Edit history (1)

No electricity. No phone. Right on Lake Agnes in a hanging valley. The trail was a 2.5 mile big zag to get up the 2000 feet up heigher from the hotel. Before my time, there was an emergency. A worker broke her ankle badly. To get help one of the mountain men ran straight down the mountain along a water pipe (the lake was the water source to the Chateau Lake Louise) and got to a phone in 15 minutes and called the helicopter which likely came from Banff, 20 minutes away as a bird flies. You make do. Glad she was okay.

[LeftInTX]

6. Yeah. It was so weird. We lived in a village with lots of close neighbor's but no phones.

I would walk to school which was on base. Of course, they had phones on base.

After two years, we moved on base and we had a phone.

It was just strange because my dad was "on-call", yet we had no phone!

[applegrove]

7. We are helpless creatures. My grandmother was born in 1898

She ran a farm and was a nurse. Her husband was a country doctor but was older so she did all the farming. They made a pact when they got married that they would not charge the poor (this was before Universal healthcare in Canada). They needed the farm because some farmers could only trade plowing a field or chickens for medical service and they had more than most. When she died I thought there goes all the knowledge of how to live off the land. We are useless compared to her.

[LeftInTX]

3. Fascinating. I always thought they used cables!

[Marthe48]

5. Near Cleveland in the 1950s

My Grandmother had a cousin in NY state, and if she wanted to call her, she had to dial the operator, tell the operator the number, hang up and wait for the operator to call back with a connection. We had a party line for a short time, and then a private line. Calls to our family grocery store were toll calls, which changed to local calls in the 1960s. It was cheaper to call after 7 on weekdays, so until we got cell phones in the 90s, or so, I would chat with loved ones after 7, for an hour or so. The charges now are a big relief!

[electric_blue68]

8. My cousin in NJ had a party line when we were quite young visiting them...

7 to 10+ yrs old. It seemed weird at first bc we had our own phone line in NYC. Eventually they got their own private line.

And, yes, I remember ?day/eve/night -different charges for phone calls when I looked at my own bills.

[Marthe48]

9. My husband's family had a party line

They lived in rural WV. They liked telling what happened during a flood in 1950. My mother-in-law had just had her 4th baby. She was in bed for 3 days as required back then. They lived right beside a creek that flooded, got right to their doorstep. The older kids were with relatives' families. My mother-in-law picked up the phone, hoping to call the relatives to see if the rest of the family was okay. She heard other people talking about the situation on the party line and assuming that mother and baby were drowned. It scared her to death. My father-in-law got his car up to the step and carried them out. The got to safety before the road was flooded. They were lucky the water didn't rise much higher, and their house was spared. They didn't find out till later that the rest of the family was okay. It was scary for them, but as the years passed, remembering the conversation on the party line lightened the story a little.

[electric_blue68]

10. Wow. Some people -really- go through some things!...

Thank goodness they were rescued! Brave actions.

I think a friend of my sister's, or someone close to that friend lived through some terrible fire in California. Made it out in time! Yeah, it was on the news, even way over here in NYC!

[Marthe48]

11. Yes, they do

My nephew's in-laws in CA missed getting burned last week in Ca. The wildfire burned all around their home. They've been burned out twice before. I couldn't live there.

[electric_blue68]

12. Omg, how terrifying! And now the third time!

[electric_blue68]

13. So I read a description of party lines saying mostly in "rural" areas...

Ha, my cousin lived in medium size town when they had it. Not way out on the boonies.

[AllaN01Bear]

14. when my dad and mum were younger , they had a party line . mrs . jones , get off the line , we can hear u breathinh!

[electric_blue68]

15. Hahaha