“What’s your phone number?”
“I’ll just enter it on my phone keypad and call you, then you’ll have my number and you can then create a new contact on your phone.”
“What’s your friend’s number?” “I’ll go to my contacts, choose ‘share contact’ and message it to you.”
Sound familiar? Can you recite any of the phone numbers of your friends and relatives without looking at your phone? Where is your phone? Is it in your pocket? Backpack? Did you leave it behind? Twenty first century situations!
Can you remember when your phone number started with a word, not a number? Mine was Victor. VICTOR three – four – one – four – six. Rolls off my tongue like it was yesterday. I was talking to my friend Steve recently about this and he rattled off his childhood phone number. Steve grew up in Massachusetts. It also started VICTOR – three…!!! What is the deal with the word? Can you sing the lyrics to the Chuck Berry song “Promised Land?” That one line… “Los Angeles, give me Norfolk, Virginia TIDEWATER four – ten – O – nine.” That’s a phone number! To write it would look like this: TI 4 – 1009.
Why was there a word as a part of the phone number? The words were assigned to geographic areas. In the St. Louis area, where I grew up, Victor was in South County. When someone told you their phone number, you could guess the area they lived in. Remember, we are talking about only landlines. Some of my friends’ numbers were Woodlawn. Woodlawn was Kirkwood/Webster. Central was the Clayton area. Parkview was Clayton/Ladue. When I met Steve Frye, he told me his phone number started with Temple. Whoa! That meant that he was from far away north county! My dad’s work number started with MO for Mohawk. Mohawk 4 – 3566. My grandparents lived in Perryville, MO. Their phone number started with the word Liberty.
So how did you dial a number with a word? You entered the first two letters of the word. In dialing Victor, you can find the letter V on the number 8 button and the letter I on the number 4 button. Therefore, my childhood number would translate to 843-4146. There were area codes, the eastern part of Missouri had been assigned 314 back in 1947. So, the number was actually a 10-digit number. But long distance was expensive, so I didn’t bother reciting the prefix of my friend’s and family’s phone numbers since everyone I knew in my childhood had the same area code anyway. With a demand for so many numbers, additional area codes were eventually added. In Missouri today, there is also 417, 573 (added in 1996), 636, 660 as well as the original 816 for the western part of the state and I’m still talking about only landlines.
Yep. Landline phones. They were attached to the wall. You never had to look for it because it could not move! It cost more to have multiple extensions in other parts of the house, so the singular phone of my childhood was on the wall in a central hallway. And when it rang, you had to go answer it even though you had no idea who was calling. No caller ID!
To dial someone’s number literally meant that you traced your fingers around the dial. Put your finger in the hole by the number and move the dial clockwise to the end and let go, allowing it to return. Then dial the next number and keep repeating. If you were calling someone whose number had a lot of 9’s or zeros, it took longer to dial!
If you ever moved, you probably had to get a new number. This is one reason I’m so tickled with the old-style phone at Eggers & Co. with the number on it. The area code is listed as 314, so it must be between 1947 and 1996. The number is TA 4 – 5271. I have wondered for a long time, what did the TA stand for? Thanks to neighbor, Ruby Steffens, who has lived in Farrar with her landline for her whole life, I finally found out. The TA is the first two letters of the word TALBOT. Thank you, Ruby for solving the mystery! Talbot 4 – 5 – 2 – 7 – 1. It’s still the phone number for Eggers & Co. Well, OK, to call today, unless you have an 824 prefix, you’ll need to dial ten: 573-824-5271
In Farrar today, there are no cell towers nearby, so when at Eggers, our smart phones will display ‘No Signal.” Even though we enjoy celebrating the mid 1900’s at Eggers when you come to visit, we decided to offer a bit of late 20th century convenience such as portable extensions, not the old phone attached to the wall with a cord. Also, when you call, you can leave a message on the voice recorder. If it rings, answer it. The incoming call may be for you! You can put your smart phone away. In your bag so you won’t have to look for it when you leave.