Describe The Phone In Your Home When You Were A Kid

[fmdog44]

My home when I was six was a black phone with no dial and a party line. I don't recall when we got a dial phone.

 

[Aunt Bea]

When I was a kid we used our grandmother's phone, we lived in part of her house.

It was a rotary phone similar to this one and it was on a party line.

I remember that we were never allowed to use the telephone during an electrical storm.

 

[Mrs. Robinson]

This was ours. My parents had an extension in their room like the one in the first post. Our phone number was JUno 8-6206.

 

[Ruth n Jersey]

Our phone was just like the one Aunt Bea posted. It was located in a small entrance to our front door. It sat on a telephone table like the one in the photo only ours was red mahogany. We kept the phone book and numbers underneath. My Grandma lived next door to us and every month she would come over to make a phone call to her 3 sisters. My Mom had to dial. For some reason she always forgot what was the o and what was the zero. We had a party line with the lady down the street. When I was a teenager I got in trouble for tying up the line by playing my new 45 records to my girlfriends. I'd hold the phone to the speaker on my record player so they could hear them.

 

[Mizzkitt]

Oh the old black phones and party lines. And not area codes, we dialed CL for Clearwater. Listening on the party line, an education in itself.

 

[applecruncher]

Black rotary dial exactly like the one Mrs R posted.
Party line.

 

[rgp]

Black rotary, like most of the others..we had a party line for a while, then my mother went to a limited line, after my 1/2 sister got to be a teen.....gee, can't imagine why <grin>

When we lived a short time in Michigan, we had a wall-mounted crank [generator] phone. I never used it, but my mother or father would pick it up, and often times just ask for the person they wanted by name...the operator knew everyone . But they would sometimes ask for a 4 digit number. Maybe a temp was working...?

 

[SeaBreeze]

We didn't get a phone in my house until I was in my early teens, and it was like the black rotary in Aunt Bea's picture. Never had a party line.

 

[Gary O']

Had wunna these

and a 'number please' when picked up

 

[C'est Moi]

Black rotary. Our number was YUkon 2-4213.

 

[jujube]

Black rotary. Telephone numbers in my town were only six digits until about 1960 or so. We were on a 4-party line and there was an old biddy who always would pick up her phone and listen to people's calls. My dad would say, "Mrs. _________, hang up the phone" and she'd screech, "I'M NOT ON THE PHONE!". Every time.

 

[Ruthanne]

It hung on the wall in a little cove in the kitchen and was beige and had a long tangled cord and was a dial phone. My dad had it for the longest time until he finally got a touch tone phone and then a cordless.

 

[SpicyTweed]

We had a black rotary-dial phone, and it sat on top of a bookcase in our livingroom. We lived in the city, so didn't have to put up with a party line. I can still remember our number: 5-2204 (which later became 455-2204).

 

[hollydolly]

This is the identical phone we had in our house... like you Spicy tweed..we also lived in the city and we DID have a party-line, for quite a while



I disliked the green..we could have red , cream or various other colours, but I think the green came as standard and the others had a premium rental cost

I still remember our number which was 9212 (in the late 60's and early 70's)

The phone sat on a wrought iron and glass half moon table attached to the downstairs hallway wall ... identical to this one...

 

[Giantsfan1954]

Tan rotary on the kitchen wall.
Yukon 7-0727

 

[Seeker]

We had a rotary wall phone with extra long cord...It was a party line.

The long cord came later, I remember how excited everyone was to get it, because then you could be in the kitchen, it was in the laundry room.

 

[ProsperosDaughter]

We did not have a telephone until AFTER I started working for the local tel co

 

[MarkinPhx]

The first phone I remember was this



I remember how excited we all were when Ma Bell upgraded the phones to this

 

[C'est Moi]

I remember that the "updated" phone we got after the black rotary was a turquoise wall phone for the den (that was a new addition to our house.) It was still a rotary dial, though.

 

[SifuPhil]

Basic black rotary like Aunt Bea's. Sat in a little niche in the wall, along with the latest phone book and one of those little plastic address things. YOnkers-9-6323.

 

[moviequeen1]

We had a black rotary phone like Aunt Bea's with no party line located on a table in living room.The extension phone was either off white or beige,mounted on the kitchen wall

 

[tortiecat]

Wooden box on wall with speaker on front and earphone hung on side. Originally we lifted the earpiece and the
operator would come on and we would give the number we were calling, and yes, it was a party line. This is
back in the mid 40's and we were one of the few in our village to have a phone.

 

[oldman]

Same as Bea’s. Our first phone number had five numbers.

 

[Widdle3]

I know we had 2 phones. One was on the wall in the kitchen and I believe it was green with a long cord. The other was black. It was upstairs on the end table in the master bed room. Both rotary. The number was LA 7-2178. LA was the town we lived in called, Laurelton.

When I was 18 we moved to another house and we had a pay phone in the hallway. Mom was able to get that because besides having 5 kids of her own, she rented out a few rooms, so it was considered a boarding house. It was 10 cents to make a local call back then.

I worked for the phone company for over 30 years. Know what my last job was? Collecting money from pay phones.

 

[Capt Lightning]

Quite simple - we didn't have one. Not many people in the town did. However my aunt May ran the 'telephone exchange' from the front room of her apartment. It was one of those with a patch panel and loads of cables with jack plugs. I expect that she knew all the gossip in town. This was in the very early 50's and then the first proper exchange was built.

I didn't have a home phone till I got married and move to our own home in 1973.