What an exciting day it was for me when I started my first job as “central” at Lochiel. It was August 1942 – I had just finished grade 13 in Alexandria High School in early May. As it was war time high school students were exempt from writing provincial exams in June if they had obtained a certain average; the idea was that they could work on the farms for ten weeks. I had just completed my term at home in mid-August and I did do farm work.

One evening John Jos. McCormick, the manager of the Glengarry Telephone Company, came to our house and after visiting for a short while he asked my father if he would consider letting me come to work at the switchboard. I was ecstatic that my mother and father were so agreeable that I should, and I started the following Monday – about mid-August. It helped a great deal that the families were neighbours and held each other in high regard.

The switchboard was in a room off the kitchen in the house where the McCormicks lived at Lochiel (Quigley’s Comers). The family consisted of John Joseph, the manager, his wife Janet and son Basil. I believe the house was owned by the telephone company.

As was the arrangement since the telephone co. was set up, the operators were given room and board when they were working. The hours of work were from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m., Monday to Sunday, and the operators worked every second week. The pay was $5.00 a week. If there were any calls between 9 p.m. and 7 a.m. J.J. or Janet took them; a buzzer which sounded very loudly was turned on at night. It was only for a genuine emergency that anyone would call at night.

Donalda (MacDonell) O’Brien taught me. The technical part was quite easy and I had some extra coaching on the job on the human relations aspect by Janet and J.J. I tried to learn as quickly as possible and I don’t think it took more than four or five days. When I was on my own Janet was my back?up, or J.J. if he happened to be there, but he spent most of his time out repairing and replacing posts and lines. Working 14 hours a day did not seem onerous. Physically the work was not hard and I enjoyed being there; Janet was great company and lots of fun.

The party line system was the norm with only a few private lines for subscribers who lived within a mile of the switchboard. The number of subscribers on each line varied from six to about twenty. I recall that line 9, which served from Lorne north and east to Brodie was very heavy, i.e., about 18 telephones. Needless to say party lines caused some problems, especially when someone wanted to use the phone for business and I would have to say that the line was busy. After a five minute period I would feel justified in asking the parties to terminate the conversation. Men used the phone very little and it was usually at noon hour for business. I would hazard a guess that 20 percent of the subscribers accounted for 80 percent of the usage. A few people called a mother or sister regularly every day for a brief conversation. Then there were the afternoon callers who would visit on the phone for an hour, two or three times a week.

The system was called a magneto telephone system and it worked like this. There was a crank on the right side of the telephone box and when you turned the crank the bells on your own phone and every other phone on the same line rang. Thus you could call any party on your own line without going through central. Then there was a black button on the left side of the box. If you depressed this button while turning the crank the bells would not ring but a signal would go through to the central switchboard. The switchboard had two rows of electric plugs in pairs, one black and one orange, with about twelve plugs in each row. These hung down through holes in the horizontal surface of the switchboard, behind the toggle switches which were the operators “control panel”. There was a set of toggle switches for each pair of plugs. One toggle switch opened the line so the operator could converse with the caller. The other toggle switch rang the party being called. (If there was a power failure the operator had to turn a crank, just like the crank on all the phones, to ring a number.) When someone called central, by turning the crank and pushing the button, a metal shutter on the face of the switchboard dropped, indicating what line was calling in. The operator would then take one of the plugs and connect it into the line calling, and say “operator” or “number please”. The operator would insert the corresponding plug into the requested fine and ring the number using the toggle switch, and then wait to see if the call was answered. After the caller was connected to the party being called the operator had to return the toggle to the closed position to eliminate background noise and ensure confidentiality. People were supposed to “ring off’ when their call was finished, signalling the operator to disconnect the plugs; otherwise it would be difficult for other people to make calls.

Every household on a line had its own “ring” so each subscriber on the line would know who was being called. Of course no-one would go near the phone if they heard someone else’s ring! In one of Don Needle’s plays about Wingfield Farms, he referred to the country telephones as the equivalent of the Internet today. Apparently there were some who could not resist the temptation of lifting the receiver, maybe just to know who was calling the neighbour, and sometimes in the guise of a mistaken number. I don’t know that this ever happened in Glengarry.

A story I heard being told when I was a child concerned two people carrying on a conversation in Gaelic, partly to practise the language but also for privacy. Suddenly one of them couldn’t think of a word and a listener could not resist saying, “You’re stuck, you’re stuck, eh”, and called him by name. What a joke that was for them all.

The ring system at Lochiel was different from other companies, probably because Glengarry Telephone was one of the early companies and ring conventions had not yet been firmly established. It was a system of long and short rings, with a long ring designated as “3″ and a short ring as “1″. Thus our home number was 20 r 3311, or two long rings and two short rings on line 20. Other variations would be 331, 3113, 3111, etc. Everyone in the house had to be alert to their own ring.

A new era was starting at the company as J.J. had become manager just that spring. People were accustomed to referring to the operator as central and would typically say “Central, give me so-and-so in (e.g.) Skye”. I was asked to start answering calls with “number please”. There did not seem to be a negative reaction to this and it seemed right as I knew only the people in my area of Lochiel. Actually all the people were very polite and understanding, as one would expect in Glengarry.

Our long distance calls had to go through the Alexandria switchboard and I learned a lot from those operators, mostly in a positive way. When someone wanted to call Montreal, for example, I filled in a special slip, called a “ticket”, on which I recorded the number being called as well as the name and number of the person calling. There was a special clock mounted in the counter next to the switchboard. It had two arms projecting upward. When the connection was made I inserted the ticket and pushed one arm to record the start of the conversation. When the call was finished I pushed the other arm. The start and end times were printed on the back of the ticket. By subtraction I recorded the duration of the call on the front of the ticket. Subscribers were charged by the minute for long distance calls. Once a month the tickets were taken to the office of Morris Bros. in Alexandria. They did the business end of the company. There was also a line to Vankleek Hill and it was used for long distance calls to that place and to Hawkesbury. In addition it was possible to connect to the Maxville exchange through Martin Ferguson’s store in Dunvegan. Mr. Ferguson had three lines coming into his store, two from Maxville and one from Lochiel. To call the Maxville exchange the Lochiel operator rang the Ferguson store. Mr. Ferguson, or possibly some member of his family, would ring the Maxville exchange on whichever line was not busy, and when the operator answered a switch would be closed to connect Lochiel with Maxville. All three available lines were party lines, which was not the normal way to connect different exchanges. If Mr. Ferguson was busy in his store there would occasionally be some delay in severing the connection between the Lochiel and Maxville exchanges, and this created problems when someone later tried to make a local call.

At the very end of 1942 there was a severe ice storm which took down almost all the telephone lines and poles. To establish a degree of communication J.J., with the help of one man, Aldema “Big” Sauvé, set up calling points at several locations - Dunvegan, McCrimmon, Dalkeith, Kirk Hill, Glen Robertson and Glen Sandfield - for emergency situations. I had the option of going home but I chose to stay at the McCormick’s as there was more excitement with the switchboard being the hub of activity. It did not seem to take much time to repair the lines. I did not learn until the 1998 ice storm that the one in 1942-43 was down-played because of the war and fear of the situation being used to the enemy’s advantage. As well, people were not as dependent on hydro as we now are; a number of areas did not yet have hydro power.

By December 1942 my salary went up to six dollars a week. This does not seem like much money but by today’s standards would be equivalent to about $200. J.J. was a great boss. He addressed issues directly with whomever as they came up and was always sensitive to my youth. Whatever interpersonal difficulties there may have been outside, he did not bring them home. Janet was bothered a great deal on the rare occasion when someone called in irate and made unkind remarks. The McCormicks were a lovely family.

I had a lot of fun at the McCormicks. The telephones were not nearly as busy then as they are now and were used little in the evening after six. So there was lots of time to talk and play such games as crocinole. Janet and I used to knit socks for the Red Cross. Grant or Ross (my brothers) frequently came in for a visit when they came to pick me up on Sunday evenings.

I would be remiss not to mention how interesting Basil made my life. He was full of ideas about writing plays as he had just started to school. Hisfather was very disappointed that he did not have an interest in horses as J.J. was a great horseman. One day J.J. dropped Basil off at his grandmother’s while he went to trade horses. What a disappointment to J.J. when Basil did not even notice that his father had a different horse.

I was lured to work in the Royal Bank in Alexandria and left this happy situation on March 31, 1943. Being a teenager I sought the excitement of the town life. This was a great job at the switchboard. I loved it and I always think fondly of the people with whom I had contact and my life-long fiiendship with the McCormicks. As was the custom, I trained the person taking over from me, Isabel (McMeekin) Fraser.

I do appreciate having the opportunity to take this pleasant trip down memory lane.

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