Thelma (Gelineau) McDonald
As Elsie MacMiIlan says in her book, BUTTERNUTS AND MAPLE SUGAR,
p.324 : “…Early in 1915 William A. MacKinnon was approached by Mr. Michael Morris, then living in Alexandria, to ask him if he would take over management of the Glengarry Telephone … The telephone at that time was not long in operation, Mr. Peter Chisholm and Mr. M. Morris having been founders…”
Mr. MacKinnon was manager and linesman until 1942, when after a serious accident he moved to Montreal and the position of manager of the Glengarry Telephone Co. Ltd. (a.k.a. Lochiel Central) was vacant. Mr. John Joseph McCormick who was an experienced linesman was asked if he would take on the position, which he agreed. He and Janet his wife and young son Basil moved into the Telephone Exchange home.
Mr. McCormick came to Alexandria to get my father’s approval of my working as telephone operator in Lochiel Central. My father said yes, and I went to work for the Glengarry Telephone Co. in the spring of 1942.
I had my own room upstairs in this very comfortable home. Janet was a wonderful cook and did the regular housework. She also saw to the needs of the operators who lived with them.
The house had an entrance hall, then a fair-sized room, big enough for two switchboards. I worked from about 8 a.m. ’till supper time, for two weeks each month. The alternating weeks, Donalda (MacDonell) O’Brien worked. She taught me, as she had worked for years for Mr. MacKinnon. She taught me the basics, how to put the headphones on and then when someone calls I was to pick up the electric cord that was buzzing and place it into the socket that was ringing, and then say “number please”. I finally got to know the rings. Each socket on the switchboard was a “line” and each subscriber had a number. There may have been 10 – 20 subscribers on each line.
I was paid $6.00 a week, a large sum as I never worked for a wage before. Imagine I was making $12.00 a month!
I finally got to know the rings. Some subscribers had a ring – such as one long ring and two short or another may have one long and one short, and so on. When a subscriber called central for a number, every subscriber on the line being called heard the rings and was supposed to answer only his own ring, but human nature being what it is, there was a lot of “listening in”.
Donalda also taught me, if there was a fire, I had to open all the lines and give one long ring and then announce the location of the fire. There was only one serious fire while I was there. A barn burned but neighbours having heard the ring and location reached the farm in time to save most of the animals.
The Alexandria operators who I always referred to as “head office” called from time to time to see if there were any questions, etc. While I was speaking to her a subscriber phoned. The Alexandria operator said, “you can take that call, I’ll wait”. The subscriber wanted to know the time. I was rattled as I thought I was being monitored by “head office” and blurted out to the caller, “it is 9 a.m.”. The subscriber thanked me and hung up. The Alexandria operator said to me in no uncertain terms, “the time is 9:02 a.m.”. I watched it after that. My work ethics were probably brought down a peg by the Alexandria operator, and I had imagined they mentioned it to Mr. McCormick, but if they did, he being the kindly man that he was, he never said a word to me.
One other occasion to show how decent John Joe was, I always received a ride to Lochiel on Sunday night to start my shift on Monday morning. This time, I was driven by a good friend and took a little longer to say goodnight than I should have. It was almost 11:30 p.m. and Mr. McCormick had to wait up for me. He gave me some fatherly advice which I took gladly and never did it again. I told my father what had happened, as I thought J.J. might tell him. My dad said, “I must thank John Joe, as you probably kept him up late when he is an early riser and had a full day’s work on Monday”. Dad wasn’t pleased with me and let me know it. As far as I knew, Mr. McCormick never did tell dad.
I worked for John Joe until September of 1942, when my sister and I were accepted into a business course given by the Defence Industries Limited for Smokeless Powder plant during the war. The course was in Valleyfield, Que. and the plant was in Nitro on de Salaberry Island.