September 1 “one ringy dingy, two ringy dingys…”

September 1st we celebrate Emma M. Nutt Day. Emma Nutt was the very first female operator. Alexander Graham Bell hired her as an operator, for the Boston Telephone Dispatch Company on September 1st, 1878. They used to use young men, but pranks and profanity became an issue. Women had more patience, and were more polite.

While not quite that old, this phone came from our family business in Zion, Ill. Made by Western Electric, this model 302 is one heavy phone.

While on the subject of phones, I have an interesting phone Directory. This would be a hardbound City Directory for Zion, published in 1962. It has yellow pages, lists of names, and their business, and a list of all phone numbers under headings by streets, and list of numerical phone numbers, and who owns the number.

When I was caregiving for my grandmother (she lived at our home for her last several years), I would almost every evening bring an old book from the library, and we would talk about it. I told her about the Zion Directory I had from 1966. She wanted to see it. We talked and talked about different businesses that had advertised-Will Inc was one of them. Another day we will talk about some of those stories, but one phone story I’ll tell today.

Grandma told me, “grandpa hated that damned book!” “How can that be?” I asked.

She said “The phone book always entered the name ‘last name first, then first name, then abbreviation of the middle name. He hated that. His name was Robert Paul Will. So people were always calling him and laughing.” I looked it up.

I could see the name in several places in the directory. Some callers, (perhaps like the young men-the first male operators, who pranked on people,) would call my grandfather, and say things like “Will Robert P? When exactly are you going to pee?”

Grandma said he would get dozens of calls. If only they had Emma Nutt (or an Ernestine the Telephone Operator with her “Is this the party to whom I am speaking?” ) to try to track those hooligans down.

And a “gracious good day to you.”