The operator (in this case, Verna) sat in front of a vertical board that displayed rows and rows of empty sockets, one socket for every telephone in town, and a horizontal panel with a dozen pairs of cords with phone jacks on the ends. Say that Ophelia Snow was at home and decided to call her husband Jed at Snow’s Farm Supply to tell him to stop at Hancock’s Groceries and pick up five pounds of sugar. When Ophelia rang the switchboard, a little bulb would light above her socket—or rather, the socket for her party line, which connected several different houses. Verna would pull one of the cords out, plug the jack into Ophelia’s socket, and say “Number, please,” into her headset microphone. When Ophelia gave Jed’s number (or just said, “Verna, connect me to the Farm Supply, please.”), Verna would plug the second cord of the pair into the socket for the Farm Supply. Then she would send a signal down the line that rang the Farm Supply phone. When Jed answered, she would flip the switch that cut off her headset so that Ophelia and Jed could talk in private. (That was the theory, anyway, although everybody in town knew that the operators didn’t always bother to turn off their headsets, especially when they didn’t have any other calls to tend to.) When Ophelia and Jed hung up, Verna would unplug the cords from the sockets and that was that.

Long-distance phone calls were a little more complicated. The switchboard had a couple of lines that connected to the long-distance office in Mobile. If Ophelia wanted to talk to her cousin in New Orleans, she would give the number to Verna, who would connect with the Mobile long-distance office, tell the operator she had a call for New Orleans, and would eventually be able to give the New Orleans operator the number for Ophelia’s cousin. When the cousin was on the line, Verna would connect Ophelia, and the two could talk. The process often took fifteen minutes or more, especially if the call had to go through several long-distance offices before it finally reached its destination. Circuits were often busy, and callers were sometimes told to hang up and try again later.

Verna was just getting into the swing of things—plugging in a call from Mrs. Sedalius at Magnolia Manor to Beulah’s Beauty Bower—when she heard a familiar voice behind her.

“Verna!” Liz Lacy exclaimed, sounding surprised. “Verna Tidwell, is that you? What in the world are you doing here?”

Verna turned around. “I’m working the switchboard,” she replied, somewhat nettled. “What are you doing here?”