What Do You Remember About Rippey?
The Rippey, Iowa, Sesquicentennial will be held on Saturday, August 1, 2020. If you have personal remembrances of Rippey, you are invited and encouraged to share those memorable stories. Just send your remembrance via email and we’ll get it posted on the Rippey News Web site, as well as on Facebook sites of the Friends of Rippey and the Rippey Sesquicentennial. You write down the anecdote or story–a page or two–and we’ll do the rest. Phyllis McElheney Lepke is serving as our volunteer coordinator and stories may be sent to her at Rippey150@gmail.com.
Having enjoyed the “I Remember Rippey” recollections received so far, I decided to write one of my own. Please send in your story or anecdote; all are appreciated and enjoyed. Phyllis McElheney Lepke
Oh, Those Party Lines…
The telephone system in Rippey when I was growing up out in the country consisted of party lines, which meant that several homes were on one phone line and a caller needed to inform the telephone operator of the phone number, so the appropriate number of long and short rings could be rung on the right line. My home phone number was 2 on 99, which meant that two rings (I think they were short.) on line #99 was the way to let us know that someone was calling our house and not my grandmother’s which was a different number and length of rings on the same line. There were others on the line as well.
So, when my boyfriend, later my husband Larry, was in the Air Force and stationed in Mississippi, he would eventually reach me after several conversations with the long-distance operators. They simply could not believe that “2 on 99” was a phone number! Every time Larry had to convince them to contact the operator in Rippey, Iowa, and ask that 2 on 99 be rung. Carol Norgren John tells me that she had the same problem trying to call home from college, and Mary Lee Dorris Weaver remembers when Gary tried to call from New York City after returning from Germany.
Of course, since the operator sat on the Main Street in Rippey, she could observe who was in town and what was happening. If you weren’t sure someone whom you wanted to call was at home, you could ask the operator if that person was in town. She would tell you if she had seen his/her car go by.
And party lines were the social media of their day. All of the rings were heard on every phone on a single line, so everyone knew when someone else got a phone call. It was common knowledge that the other parties on the line would very quietly pick up the phone, put a hand over the mouthpiece so as not to be heard breathing, and listen in to the conversation. (This was referred to as “rubbernecking.”) Larry and I were careful what we said!