HOULTON, Maine — It was a reunion of sorts. The “Number, please” girls’ first get together in 45 years. There was laughter and memories among the nostalgia; all mixed with plenty of stories. It seemed the collective group knew more than they wanted to say. They were tight-lipped, revealing only a wily smile and glint of mischief in their eyes.
“We could tell you a lot of things,” laughed Norma Suitter.
Julia Craigs, 95, initiated this impromptu gathering at her home on the North Road.
“I’m getting old you know,” said Craigs. “I might not see them again.”
The five ladies — Vera Scott, Mary Callnan, Patricia Estabrook, Suitter and Craigs — were all switchboard operators for the New England Telephone Company.
Scott joked with Suitter that she had met her husband, Don, as she traveled to different offices.
Scott mainly worked in Presque Isle for 10 years, while traveling through the county. While doing the switch count, she and several others would have to count the busy switches every two hours throughout the course of the day.
“I used to do what they called a switch count,” she said. “Don used to call his girlfriends and I heard a few conversations. I was down doing a switch count when he asked me for a date.”
The couple has now been married 52 years.
The first telephone company office in Houlton was located in a two-story brick building on Court Street owned by John A. Millar, a wholesale grocer and manufacturer of pure confectionary. A new building – now FairPoint Communications — was constructed in May and completed in August 1941.
“I went to work for the telephone company in 1937,” said Craigs. “The office was upstairs over Hairworks Studio. The switchboard was in the back and the wire chief and men got their orders from another little area there, as well.”
The standard phrase for operators in the early years was “Number please?”
“We had two cords with plugs. One answered the light and the other made the connection by tapping,” explained Craigs. “Later on, you would watch a light and if it did not go out, you would go in and say, ‘They do not answer now.’”
Craigs worked at the telephone company for four years before “dial up” became the new norm.
“There were big changes,” said Callnan, who started at the company straight out of high school. “They had plugs when I was there working. We would dial out to an outside connection.”
Suitter said there were times when someone would call and she would answer “information.’
“The person would say, ‘I am looking for a number for a guy who lives on Elm Street and his house color is …’ I would ask down the board and someone always knew who it was and we would connect them. It would amaze you,” she said. “Small town.”
Callnan worked until she was married and waited until her youngest was in school before coming back to work.
“I only worked there two years and they closed. See what I did?” she laughed.
Suitter said, with a chuckle, “Best job I ever had and Mary took care of it.”
Suitter had young children so she often times was on the nightshift.
“They had a night worker and companion,” she said. “If someone didn’t bring us in any lunch, we would call up Hatfield (who had a store) and he would prepare something before he closed up shop. He would drop it off. We had our little midnight snack.
“Sometimes, the little things just hit me,” she added. “Those were the good old days.”
“Operator 79,” said Vera laughing. “I was number seven,” Suitter recalled.
Each switchboard operator had their own headphones that were numbered.
“We had to sit and listen an awful lot,” said Callnan, “especially at night.”
Today lends itself to the electronic age. Even though the ladies own cell phones, they have not accepted the new technology with a full embrace.
“I still have my land line,” said Callnan. “I am not parting with it.”
Suitter added, “I have my old black rotary one … a desk model. It may not ring, but it is still plugged in.”
However Craigs saw many changes in the last nine decades.
“When I was a little girl, we did not have a telephone,” she said. “Then, we got a phone and it was one of those with a crank on it. They called those magnetos, I remember.”
So, from having just a central phone in the neighborhood from party to private lines and a stream of new equipment – crank handles, wall, desk to cordless, rotary to push dialing— and now, cellular lines — there may not be a home not connected today.
“It was a wonderful job,” they all agreed. “We all loved it.”
“I don’t know anyone who did not like working there,” Mary added.
Craigs, who worked for the telephone company 78 years ago, said, “We were very fortunate.”
“We did not have to have a college education,” said Scott. “I went right out of high school to work.”
Suitter noted, “We worked with the best people in the world.”
Other operators unable to make the gathering were Virgie Burpee, Marilyn Farrar, Doris Tardy, Louise Hamilton, Glenna Sperrey, Cindy McLean Fitzpatrick and Leta Adams.
Still not admitting secrets, the operators at New England Telephone Company were employed until Dec. 19, 1970 when the company closed its doors, but not its story, in the Shiretown.
