Before Cell Phones

[lorijohnhill]

This was grandma's phone. I loved it. She had it until I was 20. She used another one but kept this one hanging in her hallway by the kitchen and it still was hooked up.
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My grandparents had one like this at their lake house. The house now belongs to my uncle, but the phone is still there and used as the main phone. There is an extension with push buttons in my grandmother’s room.

We had the countertop rotary phone, like the black ones above, in our hallway. Like another poster, I didn’t spend much time on the phone. We just went outside and played with whoever else was out.

 

[antmaril]

On Christmas Eve Day in 1964 (I was 13), I came home to find the Michigan Bell man installing a pink princess phone in my room. It was just the BEST!!!

I am editing to add that this was not my own line, just my own extension.

 

[Hikergirl]

No, but nobody ever seemed to call my parents when I was on the phone (we had call waiting) so it really wasn't necessary.

 

[soccerdad72]

Not only did I NOT have my own phone line, I didn't even have an extension in my room and the cord on the kitchen phone was too short to even reach into the pantry. No privacy, no dignity; I was practically raised by wolves.

Our phone cord reached all the way down the hall and part way up our front stairs - although it probably didn't start off that long.

 

[loves to dive]

Nope we had one phone on the wall in the kitchen and that was it. It did have a long cord so you could stretch it to another room for a little privacy. I'm one of 6 kids so we only used it when we had to, no long talks on the phone. I never did the teenage spending hours on the phone.

 

[mi*vida*loca]

Yup. My mom paid to install it for my 16th bday. After that i paid the monthly bill since i worked. It was like $25 a month. I had a cordless phone with answering machine that my grandma got me for my birthday. I also upgraded to caller ID and call waiting!

I got my first cell phone when i graduated in 2001.

My grandma had 6 daughters and always had an extra line in one of the bedrooms. As the kids moved out the oldest would get that room and the phone line. But the girls essentially shared that line.

 

[prprincess]

I got my own line when I was 17. Before I was able to save up and get a phone with a built in answering machine, I had this one. It lit up when it rang.

 

[SC Minnie]

I didn't have my own line but finally got my own phone in my room for Christmas when I was 13 or 14. Before that we had the phone in the kitchen with the super long cord that didn't quite make it to my room.

 

[RedAngie]

No that was only for rich people. In the phone book under the name it would have the main phone number then say children's, and just the second number. We had a wall phone in the kitchen with a 3 ft. cord. And even now, both our places in Ontario are just like that with no caller ID, that's right, when they ring we answer. But there is a different ring if the incoming call is long distance.

In the phone book my line was listed as "Teenage Line" under my parents' names. I didn't pay for my phone until I turned 18. It wasn't very much, since I rarely made toll calls. I avoided the temptation of 976 numbers such as for the the Psychic Hotline for only $2.99 per minute.

 

[firefly_ris]

We had a 2nd line for the fax machine -- when I was a tween/teen I hooked up my Garfield phone to it and if I knew my friend was calling me at a certain time on that number I'd have to pick it up real quick before the fax machine did!

 

[BrianL]

I got my own line when I was 17. Before I was able to save up and get a phone with a built in answering machine, I had this one. It lit up when it rang.

I had one like that, but with slightly different colors on the components.

When we lived with my grandparents we had that standard Bell Labs Model 500 style touch tone model, and my Mom had a princess phone in her room, also touch tone (buttons in the receiver). We eventually got a fancier one as our main with spped dial buttons and other such features. When we movies, my sister and I got our own like and we had a phone with a really long cord to walk around with it, ha ha! I eventually got that clear phone for my room. Eventually, the kids line became the Internet line as well.

One thing I think is funny is there is a building in town that used to be "the phone store" where you would get your phones before you could just buy ones like that in Wal Mart or wherever. They were like part of your service I think and the store was either a South Central Bell or AT&T owned location. It's just funny because after all the splits and mergers and such, that store is still an AT&T store, only now it has cell phones instead of the Model 500 style.

 

[RedAngie]

That was exactly my problem too! My dad would not allow me to have a phone in my room at all. All the phones were in public rooms. My dad did it because he wanted to eavesdrop on my conversations to make sure I wasn't talking about anything inappropriate with my friends. Do you know how hard it is to talk to a boy or talk to your friends about a boy when your dad is sitting there listening to every word you say?

My maternal grandparents owned a small store that sold soda, ice cream, penny candy, and the like. There was a pay phone on the wall, no booth. Many people in the neighborhood didn't have phones back in the 1940's and beyond so they used the phone in the store. I didn't find out until well after my grandmother died that she was the neighborhood blabbermouth and would eavesdrop on people using that phone and then spread any juicy gossip she overheard.

People who had their own phones would call that pay phone to talk to others without phones. My mother and her siblings often told of the times they had to run down the block to tell Mrs. So-and-so that there was a call at the store for her.

 

[NYCgrrl]

No personal phone until I was an adult and paid for it in my own abode.
It looked like this and I thought it was sooooooooo cool, LOL:

 

[dish rag]

In the phone book my line was listed as "Teenage Line" under my parents' names. I didn't pay for my phone until I turned 18. It wasn't very much, since I rarely made toll calls. I avoided the temptation of 976 numbers such as for the the Psychic Hotline for only $2.99 per minute.

Seemed like everything was long distance in those days and expensive. The high school I attended on rural Pa was long distance from my house.

 

[stitch'sgirl]

I don't remember when I got this lego phone because I really only remember having one line at our house. I thought it was pretty cute. [/GALLERY]

 

[Diznotyzed]

It never even occurred to my two sisters and I to ask for our own line 'cause we knew the answer would be no. Growing up we had a pink wall phone in the kitchen, where we also had a pink stove and refrigerator. My parents had a light blue princess extension in their bedroom. When we moved to a newly built house in another town in 1969, we had trim line phones with push buttons, a harvest gold one, a red one and again blue for my parent's room. We could unplug these to move them around, but there were only phone jacks in the family room, my parent's room and the basement.

 

[Music City Mama]

I didn't have my own phone line, but I had a Genie phone in my room:

 

[sailorstitch]

My maternal grandparents owned a small store that sold soda, ice cream, penny candy, and the like. There was a pay phone on the wall, no booth. Many people in the neighborhood didn't have phones back in the 1940's and beyond so they used the phone in the store. I didn't find out until well after my grandmother died that she was the neighborhood blabbermouth and would eavesdrop on people using that phone and then spread any juicy gossip she overheard.

People who had their own phones would call that pay phone to talk to others without phones. My mother and her siblings often told of the times they had to run down the block to tell Mrs. So-and-so that there was a call at the store for her.

That sounds like something my grandma would've done too!

And if it could even get more humiliating, imagine doing all of that on a (very nosy) party-line. It was literally impossible for any kid in my hometown to successfully plan shenanigans.

I'm an 80s kid/90s teen so party lines were long gone by then.

 

[RangerPooh]

Nope, but we had an extension cord that stretched into the garage. It was even better when we went cordless. Then my brother and I could roam the backyard while we talked to friends.

 

[BLAZEY]

No, we had black rotary phone upstairs and a green on downstairs. I hated taking on the phone (still do). Sister got a phone for her room at about age 12-13 for Xmas, but it was the same main line in the house. We did get another line when we got dial-up internet. I got my first cell phone as I lived at home while going to University. I had a 30 minute drive from home to school and had a couple night classes. There was a stretch of highway with no nearby shops to call from if my car had a breakdown.