I talked to Donna Lu (Cherblanc) Falletti, age 91, this week about the telephone system in the Republic of Frontenac back in the day.

She worked the switchboard at the telephone office — located halfway between McKay Street and the old Calhoun Lumberyard — the summer of her sophomore year at Frontenac High.

The ‘office’ — a switchboard and a counter to pay your bill — was in the front room of Verna Koopman’s home.

Switchboards and operators were an integral part of communications before the dial telephone arrived. Operators played a crucial role in connecting between different telephones or telephone networks. The operator manually connected calls by plugging and unplugging cords on the switchboard to connect callers with the correct party. They handled emergency calls for medical, police or fire help. They also provided help with making long-distance calls, directory assistance, and getting needed repairs.

Donna Lu remembered clearly the day she connected to a phone line and said, “Number, please?” and heard, “I wanna talk to my grandma.” She looked over at Helen Pinamonti, a seasoned operator, who matter-of-factly said, “Oh, that’s Stevie Knoll. Plug him in to Matt and Mary Knoll’s line.”

Donna Lu said a large part of the town’s connections were made that way, even though every residence and business in town had a 4-digit number. (This brought flashbacks to Mayberry and Sheriff Taylor saying into the phone at his office, “Sarah, would you get me Aunt Bea, please.”)

Virgil Albertini, who grew up on Depot Street just a couple of houses north, remembered both the living room office and the women who worked there. He used to stop by and visit on his way home from having a beer uptown. Remembered one night he accompanied Carolyn Lager to her home over by the Idle Hour after her shift because she was little uneasy about walking in the dark.

Virgil also remembered that operator JoAnn Veltri got a call from a woman who didn’t know the name of the man she wanted to talk to. After some time trying to figure out who it was by describing the man, the woman told her he was missing two fingers on his right hand. No problem, she knew who it was right away … and made the connection to Vic Simone.

As you might expect, there was some concern about operators listening in to intimate conversations. Virgil told me one of his buddies — who was known to be something of a Romeo — went all the way over to Arma to make a long distance call to a girl to make sure and keep it a secret.

Getting back to the switchboard, back then many businesses wired the public payphones on the same telephone line as their private business line. Donna Lu attested to how this could be a problem with relating a story about Pipi Mingori – owner of the Silver Star tavern just up the block on McKay — during a long-distance a call his son.

A long-distance operator came on the switchboard to check with her, saying he was being foulmouthed.

“What happened?” Donna Lu asked, a little astonished.

“Well! … when I told him he needed to deposit more money to the continue the call he said, “I’ll get you around the front!”

Donna Lu then explained that he had two phones connected to same line, one in his apartment in the back and a pay phone in the front of his business. That he was crippled and just telling her he needed a little time to go to the pay phone to deposit more money.

This satisfied the operator and she went back and made the connection for him (I’m guessing with an apology).

Donna Lu grew up on Carlton Street in Frontenac, born to a French father (Cherblanc) and Italian mother (Purgatorio). Said her dad used to joke that by marrying a Purgatorio he got them halfway to heaven.

She married fellow Frontenac High graduate Gerald Falletti in 1958 and spaced raising three children between stints working as a teller at the national bank in Pittsburg.

When I asked her about growing up in Frontenac in the 40s and 50s she brought up the fun of riding to area high school ballgames, visiting and singing songs, on the ‘Girls Bus’ She related one ride in which they sang ’99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall’ (both backward and forward) during the trip. When they got ready to head back, bus driver, Jim Rossini, told them, “Girls, I don’t mind you singing on the bus … but you gotta stop singing ’99 Bottles of Beer’!”

She also mentioned hanging out with friends Carol (Kritzer) Didier, Barb (McFarland) Grilz and Florene LaForte at Fedell’s Drug store. There Mr. Fedell doled out penny pieces of bubble gum, and they drank 8-cent chocolate frosts made by Gertie and Margaret that were heavenly. Also told me about riding the Pittsburg-Frontenac city bus together to Pittsburg to watch movies at the Midland, Colonial or Cozy (leave on the 1 p.m. bus and return on the 5 p.m.).

Reflecting on our phone conversation I found myself going back to something she said after we discussed growing up in the 40s and 50s without your own car to go ballgames and a phone that you carried everywhere.

“I’m not sure,” she said with a mixture of nostalgia and certainty, “if kids today have as much fun as we did back then.

If you have a story or photo for LBC, contact me at 620-704-1309 or jtknoll@swbell.net