June 26, 2003

Plains Folk: Party Lines

Tom Isern, Professor of History
North Dakota State University

The wall telephone jangles. The lady of the farmhouse picks up. "Hello Mrs. Arbuckle. This is McKenzie, the thresherman. I’m calling from over here at Schmidts. I just wanted to let you know that we’re gonna be threshed out here sometime tonight and we’ll be moving the rig over to your place after dark."

"OK then, so we’ll feed the crew here tomorrow noon?"

"Right, we’ll have supper here tonight, but dinner at your place tomorrow."

"I guess I better go out to the coop and kill a few chickens."

"You know, Mrs. Arbuckle, the boys all say they like your fried chicken the best."

I’ve been doing some writing for the South Dakota State Historical Society, including some dialogues typical of rural party lines. These are intended to be heard by museum visitors who pick up wall telephone receivers.

Party lines began during the first decade of the 20th century, including some that ran over wires strung atop fence posts. They remained common into the 1960s and prevailed longer in some places. When the Rural Electrification Administration began making loans to telephone cooperatives in 1949, that began the series of improvements that would phase out party lines.

Writing these little dialogs might be just an exercise in creative writing, but I try to include authentic detail in each. For instance, it was common to say the place was "threshed out" when the work was done, and at noon the crew ate dinner, not lunch. Fried chicken was the staple of local threshing rings, which the threshermen sometimes called "chicken and pie outfits."

In another dialog a Mennonite farmer rings the neighbors to invite them over for Faspa, or afternoon lunch, on Sunday afternoon. Deliberately, he lets them know that the preacher will be coming, a sign of some prestige.

In still another, a young swain rings his sweetheart to ask her out to the drive-in picture show in Redfield. Well, there still is an operating drive-in in Redfield, one of the few left on the plains. Of course, when he calls, some neighbor boys pick up and listen, much to his embarrassment.

I do remember the party line on our farm in Kansas. Our ring was three longs and two shorts. Nowadays portable radios fulfill some of the same functions as the old party lines.

I hope that the dialogs I have written sound true to life. Try this one. Preceding the conversation comes the general ring -- a long, sustained crank.

"This is Clarice Muncie. Everybody who is picking up, get the word out to the fields. We’ve got a wheat fire over on the Eberle quarter. You can see the smoke. Must have started from the truck exhaust. We need everybody right away to fight the fire. With this wind, it’s gonna jump the section road for sure."

"Clarice, have you called the fire department already?"

"Yeah, I got through to them, but they’ll have to bring the truck all the way from Gregory, and by that time the fire’s gonna be halfway across the township. George is on the combine, and he’s trying to run the fire through the machine, but he needs people there to beat out the little fires behind. So get out there now! Gunnysacks! You’ll need gunnysacks. Gather some up before you go out to get the men."

And so on. Gosh, I sure hope they got the fire out. I should have checked the muffler for straw after I backed up in the field.

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Source: Tom Isern, (701) 799-2941, isern@plainsfolk.com
Editor: Rich Mattern, (701) 231-6136, richard.mattern@ndsu.nodak.edu 

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