Roger’s Remembrances

Lincoln had a 1940 population of about 80,000, which was a pretty small place compared to the Chicago mess — and that was just fine with Mary and me! As we left Chicago in Henry (the car) in September of 1946, we were looking forward to a simpler environment.

Henry made the trip from Chicago to Newton, Iowa, all o.k. Mary and Peggy stayed with her folks at 1009 for the first week while I went to Lincoln to meet the movers, get the furniture unloaded, and report to L.T.& T. I went back to Newton after the first week to bring Mary and Peg to Lincoln. While I was there we celebrated Peggy’s first birthday in the dining room at 1009 in Newton.

Houses
“Hi” Wheeler (photo), L.T.T. Chief Engineer who hired me, had written to say he had secured a house for us to rent but warned we might not wish to move in after seeing it. So on the way to Lincoln when we would see an old decrepit abandoned farm house we would wonder if it were as good as where we were headed.

Well, our first house in Lincoln (1529 South 18th) was pretty humble. It had broken plaster here and there, which Mary covered up with wall hangings, towels, or pictures. She used some old bed sheets for the curtains in the bedrooms. The floors were covered with linoleum — I don’t know what was underneath. But it had an inside toilet, gas cooking stove, two bedrooms, kitchen, living/dining area, small screened-in front porch, and a basement of sorts. (1529 and its neighboring houses were later torn down to make room for a parking lot for the nearby super market.)

The furnace was coal fired, which I learned how to stoke after a few false starts. It was Mary who told me that Dad Campbell used to go down in the evening before retiring and “cover” the fire to keep it alive until morning. So obviously (I assumed) the thing to do was to cover the fire with coal so it would have a good supply. We were lucky I didn’t burn the house down! It sure got hot during that night. I learned you are supposed to cover the fire with some coal and then cover the whole thing with a generous layer of ashes! I soon got the hang of it, and all went well in the winter of 1946(1). I don’t remember what we had in the way of a hot water heater. Mary washed out diapers by hand. We couldn’t afford diaper service. She stood on a folded ironing board to gain a little height and save her back.
. . . . . . 1 Back in Hutch days we had had a coal-fired furnace, but Dad converted to gas before I ever had a chance to see what you did to keep the fire going all night long.

In the spring of 1947 some new acquaintenances told us of a house to rent which was right next to them. It sounded as if it were considerable better than where we were for just a little more money. (Somewhere around $40 a month). This was 2156 South 58th street, which was the edge of Lincoln at the time. We moved.

The landlady was Mary Alice Macy, who a few years later became the piano teacher for some of our brood. 2156 was a nice little one-story house with an oil-burning furnace, electric stove, and electric hot water heater. No more worries about covering the fire at night! I strung some lines up in the basement to dry laundry on in the winter. The basement had a dirt floor, so if you dropped anything, it went back into the wash again. We bought one of those Bendix washing machines with the window in the front door. That was real luxury!! It was out in the enclosed back porch, which got pretty cold in winter time.

The Hutchinson and Newton folks could now visit us with some regularity. I rigged a small box-seat swing by the front driveway, and Aunt Ethel had a great time swinging the kids. 2156 was a comfortable home, though far from luxurious. Phyllis and Marilyn were both born while we lived there. The time came when we thought it about time to put down roots with a house of our own. It looked as if L.T.&T. was to be my permanent job, and 2156 was getting crowded.

We were attending church at the First United Presbyterian Church (35th and F). We liked the “Randolph” area. It was considerably closer to downtown and had a nice “family” feel to it. In the latter part of 1949, after looking around at several prospects, we found 720 South 33rd. 33rd is a busy street, which was probably why we could almost afford 720. Mary’s folks helped us with the down payment, and we were in a good house at last.

The real estate man had said that 720 was “built like a meeting house”, and he was right. It was a two and a half story very substantial residence. It had hot-water radiator heat (gas fired boiler), fireplace, four bedrooms (three of them with walk-in closets), a clothes chute from second floor to the basement, full basement, one and a half baths, dining room with a built-in sideboard, enclosed entry areas off the kitchen and front room, and finished third floor.

I soon learned that the “altitude” meter — that is what it said! — on the boiler was to let you know when you had enough water in the radiator system. There was an overflow tank up in the third floor which accommodated the expansion of the water as it heated up. I also learned how to bleed the air out of the radiators so that they would heat properly.

The hot water radiators did a superb job of holding nice even heat, but they weren’t much good at blowing cold air for air conditioning! With hot weather approaching, I rigged up a system very much like the one Dad used for 506 in Hutch — automobile radiators with cold water trickling through them and a blower(2) to draw air through those radiators. I coupled the output of the blower to the bottom end of the clothes chute in the basement. It put out quite a blast of cool air in the kitchen access door and the second-floor access door. I had to uncouple the blower when it came time to put clothes down the chute. Otherwise, your socks came right back in your face.
The kitchen and the stairway up to the second floor were quite comfortable, but it didn’t do much good for the rest of the house. We eventually got window air conditioners for the main bedroom and for the living room.
. . . . . .2 I THINK the blower was one Bob gave me that he no longer needed. It was that old brown job.

We raised most of our small family in 720. Randolph grade school was a six-block walk. Church was three blocks. We enjoyed the fireplace. We took out the wall (non load bearing) between the kitchen and the enclosed entry way to provide a convenient eating area. (That’s where Mary spilled a WHOLE pitcher of milk on the floor.) The main short coming of the house was no family room. The main problem with the location was the busy, busy 33rd thoroughfare.

So Mary would keep track of the house ads in the paper, and every once in a while we would go look at one. It had to have at least three bedrooms, a fireplace, a family room, and not be on a main arterial. By then (1958) I was back into ham radio, so a lot big enough for a good antenna was also a near requirement. It would be nice to stay in the Randolph area.

We had told Art Johnson, a friend at church and a realtor, our interest in a move and the requirements. One day his salesman, Bob Wehrli, called to say he had something in the Randolph area which might just fit us. We got the family together and took a look. It came pretty close, but did not quite take our fancy. Almost as an after thought Wehrli said perhaps we would like to look at this other place. It was not in the Randolph district, but we decided to look anyway. It was
2115 South 24th. We knew it was for us as soon as we saw it.

Price and timing were something of a problem, but Art thought he could work it with the present owner if we traded 720 plus $10,000. That was what happened, so I don’t know exactly what we paid for 2115.

We moved into 2115 just before Thanksgiving 1958 and have never been sorry. It has fit our family both while the kids were maturing and now (1992) when they bring their own families to visit. There has been room for sleeping, eating, playing, studying, ham radio, quilting, computering, and just plain living. It is a little deficient in closet space, but that’s not much to complain about! I fully intend to die here; that is, if I were ever to do that!

At Lincoln Tel and Tel
When “Hi” Wheeler had interviewed me the summer of 1946, he said the Equipment Engineer, Tom Risser (photo), was to retire in three years. I would be groomed to take Tom’s place in the engineering of the large dial offices, primarily Lincoln. All other large towns were still “manual”, but I would be in on the engineering as they switched to dial operation. The Traffic Department handled the engineering of the dial central office equipment for the smaller towns, except for four right around Lincoln — Davey, Denton, Malcolm, Raymond, and Waverly — which had “free” service to Lincoln.

Lincoln in 1946 had five-digit telephone numbers and four locations containing dial switching equipment: the “2-5″ office(3) at 14th and M, the “3″ office at 20th and Sumner (actually the second lot west of the intersection), the “4″ office at 48th and South, and the “6″ office at 49th and Huntington. Each office used A.E.Co. “Strowger” (the inventor) step-by-step switching equipment. The “4″ office had been placed in service in 1937 and was a fairly “modern” version of step-by-step office design. All other offices used equipment whose design was about 1924 vintage. They gave good service but lacked several features of “modern” design. If properly maintained, it would last a loooooong time. In fact, the “6″ office still had equipment which had first been “new” in 1904. As I remember, Risser told me it had come from 14th and M at the time the “new” 1924 equipment was installed there(4).
. . . . . .3 The office took as a “name” the first digit of the 5-digit telephone numbers it served.
. . . . . .4 Tom made quite a name for himself with the 1924 installation at 14th and M. The original 1904 equipment (while it was working) was jacked up about 10 feet, and the new equipment installed underneath. That switchroom had HIGH ceilings.

The “main” building was actually two buildings — the initial 1904 structure facing on 14th street, and the 1914 addition facing on M street. The 1904 structure housed the “2-5″ office dial switching equipment and a few “people” offices. The 1914 structure housed offices, the operator toll board (3rd floor), and the cafeteria. I think its 4th floor had been added in 1924.

It was fun right from the start. Tom showed me the ropes. L.T.T.’s Engineering Department at the time had Risser as Equipment Engineer and Lloyd Lyne (photo, right) as Outside Plant Engineer. Harlan Cane (photo, left) was a “cost” engineer. Bud Eden, Vic Musselman, and Don Christle were the Drafting department. The people were very kind to the “new young engineer” from Chicago. Wheeler would check on how I was getting along occasionally but pretty much left me to Risser. “Hi” was not a very “warm” person, but he always treated me ok.

The L.T.T. organization in the late 1940s was much like most other large Independent telephone companies. The founder of the company, Frank Woods, Sr. (photo, left), was still alive and on the job regularly. The Commercial Department (Merle Hale) ran the “business office” and “public relations” end of things. The Plant Department (F.E. Behm) maintained the plant and installed the PBX and small central office equipment jobs. The Traffic Department (C.C. Donley) handled the operators for both local and long distance service. Accounting (I.J. Devoe) accounted. Lincoln had its own Commercial (K.B. Cary, Alex Geist) and Plant (Clay Liebhart) operations.

Little by little I became acquainted with folks in other departments.

My first assignment of consequence was to take the PABX(5) equipment which served the Lincoln Air Base during World War II and reuse it at the two campuses of the University of Nebraska. On this job I first met “Pep” Saunders. (His name was “Lovell”, but he earned the nick name soon after joining L.T.T.) I can still recall the day Pep and I were walking from the telephone office to the University Administration Building (torn down in 197?) where the equipment was to be installed. Pep needed to go over and talk to Roy Mills, who was splicing the “tip cable”. EVERYONE knows what’s a tip cable. But I didn’t, and Pep was very kind as he explained the need for such(6) to this green young kid from Chicago. I always had a warm spot for Pep in my heart after that.
. . . . . 5 This is A.E.Co. lingo for “Private Automatic Branch Exchange” as opposed to just a “PBX”.
. . . . . 6 Until the 1950s, telephone cables which entered the telephone building from the outside world had wires insulated with paper. The paper-covered wires were not suited for soldering to the terminals on the “main distributing frame”. So a “tip cable” was spliced to the end of the outside cable. The wires of the tip cable were insulated with cotton (normally) and could be treated so that the insulation would not unravel when the wires were soldered to the main frame.

In early 1947 the telephone industry had a three-week strike. At L.T.T. the toll board was staffed by non-union people. I donned a headset and helped handle toll calls. This was before customers could dial their own long distance calls. The strike action cost many long-time friendships.

In the immediate post-war (that’s WW II) years telephone companies were hard pressed to catch up with the pent up demand for telephones. L.T.T. used dial equipment from Automatic Electric, but was faced with the prospect of having to wait two years for delivery. This was primarily because orders at A.E.Company were backed up waiting for an engineer(7) to write the specifications required for manufacturing.
. . . . . 7 After the war A.E. lost many key engineers to Stromsburg-Carlson and North Electric who had become real competitors with their own versions of dial telephone systems.
. . . . . 8 I don’t know who initiated the idea, but I suspect it was Donley, who was more adventuresome than Wheeler.

So in early 1948, A.E. and L.T.T. agreed(8) it would be to the advantage of both of them for me to go to Chicago and function as an A.E. engineer and write the factory specifications for L.T.T. orders. It turned out to be a good deal for everyone but Mary. L.T.T. now had to wait only six months for delivery, A.E. got their money sooner, and I was getting some valuable experience. However, each order took me to Chicago for one or two weeks at a time, and that was harder on Mary than I realized. She didn’t complain, but if I were doing it again, I’d come home on week ends for those two-week trips.

Lincoln needed more equipment in every one of its central offices, so I got well acquainted with the switchroom gang in each place. Downtown at “2-5″ there was Ed Cummings (left), Hugo Staley (right), Del Gilmore, Howard Smith; at the “3″ office was Warren Shuck (left), Howard Stroup; at the “4″ office George Albury (right); and “6″ office Milt Metcalf. There were others whose names elude me; but, to a man, they were most gracious in helping me learn things about the equipment which were new to me.

On one of the early Chicago trips I brought home one of those “new” RCA 45 rpm record changers and “The Little Engine That Could” record album. Each trip after that I’d bring another album — which is where all the 45 rpm albums came from that the grandkids still play today (1992).

The trip to Chicago was an easy over-night train trip on the Burlington. I’d usually take a taxi to catch the 9:00 p.m. on Sunday evenings. Coming back I’d take (I think it was also 9:00 p.m.) the train Friday night and be met by Mary and the kids the next morning. I made several dozen of these trips from 1948 and into the early 1950s, during which time the jobs increased in complexity from simple “line additions” of a few hundred lines to being the “job engineer” for the initial installation of local and toll dial equipment for the 15th and M building in Lincoln.

The guys at A.E.Company were absolute gems in helping me at that end. Thank you Bruno Manderino, Joe Haefner, Fred Kahn, Imre Molnar, George Summerscales, M.E. Griffins, and several others with elusive names.

At LTT the first extra person I got to work on engineering projects with me was Gay Henderson. I can’t recall whether it was Wheeler or Donley who agreed that I should get a helper — probably Donley. I was favorably impressed with Gay on a trip I had made down to the Warehouse. He turned out to be an excellent detail engineer. He died a few years ago.

In 1949 Wheeler became Vice President, and “Cec” Donley (photo, right) became Chief Engineer, bringing with him the engineers, equipment files, and his secretary, Marie Jackson(9) from the Traffic Department . I was concerned that I might not fare as well under this new arrangement, but Donley assured me that my future was secure in the engineering of the larger central offices. I was still making the Chicago trips.
. . . . . 9 Marie would be the efficient secretary for the next three Chiefs.

Donley was an excellent leader. He could see that we were not tooling up rapidly enough to meet the coming demands. One of the first things he did (after checking with me about available floor space) was to change an order for a 300-line addition in the 2-5 office up to 1000 lines. Over the next several years he kept after each of the Division leaders to add the personnel needed to do the job. Engineering about doubled, to take up 2/3rds of the fourth floor in the 14th and M building.

In 1954 Donley died from a heart attack. A.O. Andrews (photo, left) became Acting Chief Engineer for a short time, until Paul Henson (photo, right) was appointed as Chief Engineer. Paul was a super person. Considerate. Intelligent. Humble. Visionary. Capable. Great boss. Paul invited me to go with him in getting a new chapter started for Toastmasters. We both were regular attenders. Then –

Somebody at United Utilities — a holding company with substantial telephone operations — knew a good thing when they saw it. In 1959 they hired Paul as an executive (I forget the title). Paul rose rapidly in the United Utilities ranks and went on to become a nationally recognized — and highly respected — leader in the Independent segment of the telephone industry. As our paths crossed in later years, Paul remained the sort of man I had known at L.T.T.

So in February of 1959 I became L.T.T.’s Chief Engineer, reporting to Merle Hale (photo, left), the Vice President. At 9:00 a.m. each Monday morning the Vice-President’s Staff met to share information as to what was going on. I would usually report on the progress and or problems associated with the addition being made to our 15th and M building. This was four floors on top of the initial 3-story structure and four stories on the east. It was sometimes quite a tussle dealing with inevitable changes in building plans and justifying the increase in costs to Hale. We moved all of the people from the 14th and M building to the 15th and M building during late 1959/early 1960.

The Monday morning staff meetings by then included (besides myself) – I may be off in the timing in some instances – Lloyd Cleveland (left) as Traffic Superintendent, Max Walker as PlantSuperintendent, Ken Lawson (right) as General Commercial Superintendent, Guy Seaton as Personnel Director, Larry Connealy (left) as Auditor, Buck Isaman as Systems Planning Supervisor, Houghton (rhymes with “boatin’”) Furr as Treasurer, and Tom Woods, Jr. (right) as President. (Neither Furr nor Woods reported to Hale, but attended the meetings to get and give info for their bailiwicks.) In spite of their positions, they were both very unassuming and friendly. I was intrigued by how Tom could discuss how he saved $2 on a shirt, and he could probably have bought out the shirt maker! Furr was loaded with brains and talent. An excellent musician.

Life was extremely busy in the 1960s. We had five small children. I functioned on two national engineering committees that took me from Lincoln a few times a year. One of these was the USITA (United States Independent Telephone Association) Engineering Committee. We met several times a year, some of which were with Bell System folks at 195 Broadway in New York City. Some of the USITA men included Ad Wilson, with an Illinois Independent; Ross Herrick (whom I first knew in A.E.Co. days); Frank Barnes, Jr. (a super-nice guy); and Tom Warner the USITA Technical Director. I chaired the group a couple of years. It was an intensely rewarding and taxing experience.

I was elected President of the local Engineers’ Club and of the initial chapter of the Nebraska IEEE, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. This was a combination of the old American Institute of Electrical Engineers (AIEE) and the Institute of Radio Engineers (IRE). I dropped out of Toastmasters.

Session and the S.S. superintendent job at the U.P. church took time. Under Nelson Warner’s guidance we built a new sanctuary. Nelson went to California, and Dallas Gibson became pastor. (I was secretary of the Search Committee that went to Garner, Iowa, to give Dallas the once over.) In the early 1960s I became involved with the Prayer Breakfast movement. Further comments on that area are in the separate Chapter titled Church Stuff.

I was not cut out to be an executive. I liked technical details, but was now cut off from that. I did not enjoy dealing with personnel problems. Fortunately, there was good talent in the men who headed the Divisions in Engineering – Charlie Connors (left) (Transmission and Protection), Ken Versaw (right) (Dial Equipment), Vic Musselman (Outside Plant), A.O. Andrews (Office Manager), and Bud Eden (left) (Building Design) were loyal and dedicated to getting the job done. L.T.T.’s program to convert all exchanges to dial operation and institute customer toll dialling made good headway in the 1960s. This was given a big boost by a decision of Merle Hale’s —

In the 1960s we were using A.E.Company “step-by-step” electro-mechanical switching systems to convert towns to local dial operation. It took a lot of extra equipment to allow a customer to dial his own “long distance” calls. The equipment had to identify who he was, where he wanted to go, and how to get there(1). For a town like Lincoln it saved enough “operator effort” to easily pay for the equipment. The medium-sized towns yet to be converted to local dial operation were a different story. The Engineering Department had the responsibility for making the cost studies(2) and recommendations as to what course to pursue. Now for Hale’s decision —

It was at the Vice President’s weekly Staff meeting just after we had “published” the cost study as to subscriber toll dialling for Beatrice — next up of the larger towns to be converted to dial operation. The cost study showed (and depending on the validity of assumptions) that for a few years there would not be enough “dialable” toll traffic to pay for the required equipment. But Engineering recommended that we go the automatic toll dialling route anyway. Merle said he had reviewed our study; that L.T.T. was a modern progressive company; and we WERE going to provide customer toll dialling — whether or not it initially “proved in”. Time would quickly prove Merle to be absolutely correct.

. . . . . .By the 1970s L.T.T. was well into a program of using “electronic” switching systems, which could readily do all that was required for customer toll dialling.
. . . . . .As the engineers say, “You can prove anything if you just make the right assumptions”. But our gang did the best we could at using honest assumptions.

In 1967 Merle Hale rearranged things and moved me to Chief Planning Engineer as head of the Planning Department. This was basically a sideways move with some painful side issues which I will not discuss. Anyway, the new job was charged with helping L.T.T. lay long-range plans to keep ahead of future requirements as the industry changed. I didn’t make the plans — just tried to encourage and coordinate the other departments in their planning. Parts of it I was suited for, and parts were a real drag.

In 1967 Hale retired, and my new boss was Tyler Ryan. In 1969 Tyler arranged for me to be “loaned” part time to the Nebraska Consolidated Communications Corporation (NCCC) to help in an NCCC Los Angeles project. That is discussed in a separate Chapter titled The Los Angeles Project.

Somewhere in the early 1970s (I can’t pin point the year) Tyler died of a heart attack. Jim Geist became the Vice President, and my boss. He seemed to appreciate my technical background with the company. I liked Jim. He did (and still is doing as of 1992) a great job of tooling up L.T.T. to keep it moving ahead in an increasingly competitive environment. L.T.T. stock holders owe a lot to Jim Geist.

Geist reduced the frequency of the Monday morning staff meetings. By then the department heads included Charlie Arnold in Commercial, Charlie Connors in Plant, Dick Hobson in Traffic, Ken Versaw in Engineering, and Neal Westphal in Personnel.

By the mid 1970s the nature of the telephone industry was changing rapidly, both from changes in technical apparatus and from the competitive environment. Some very talented younger faces were on board at L.T.T. (in addition to others mentioned earlier) — Jim Strand, Frank Hilsabeck, Keith Morris, Dick Bauer, Bob Roth, Dennis Heidbrink, Larry Small, Chip Woods, Jack Geist, Merv Traester — they didn’t need any help from me! I could feel myself growing rapidly obsolete.

And my job was getting in the way of some things I really wanted to get at — such as visiting the grandkids more, doing some relaxed reading, spending some time at church chores, doing more ham radioing, taking more naps, and possibly learning about computers. What’s more — (1) I was in my early 60’s, (2) Mom and Dad had both died in their late 60’s, and (3) brother Bob had already had a couple of heart attacks. The statistics seemed to be against me. Maybe it was time to consider retiring.

About then the company made several improvements in the executive retirement program. That did it. Mary and I thought we could live well enough on the pension, Social Security, and modest income from investments. So at the end of January, 1981, I took early retirement from L.T.T.after a little over 34 years service.

I was deeply touched by two incidents which occurred when my coming retirement became known to fellow employees:
The committee in charge of the monthly supervisors’ meetings scheduled me to talk on my L.T.T. experience at the meeting just a week before I was to retire. The room was packed. After my talk — which consisted of a few remembrances of people I’d worked with and encouragement to “carry on” — they gave me a standing ovation. It was a soul-satisfying and humbling moment.

Then during the party of Department Heads and wives, when others were making remarks, Larry Connealy said, “Roger, you’re an easy man to love.” I can’t think of a nicer compliment. I really was not much of an “executive”, but I’ll take Larry’s comment any time. Thank you, Larry.

Community Involvement
Soon after coming to Lincoln I joined the Lincoln Jaycees and functioned on a couple of minor committees. But I dropped out after a couple of years, deciding that I’d rather put any extra energy into church, where I was becoming increasingly involved. This was probably a mistake. My circle of Lincoln friends would be a better mix had I stayed active in JC’s.

There was very little community involvement until I became Chief Engineer in 1959. Then I in effect took Paul Henson’s place in the Lincoln Sertoma (SERvice TO MAnkind) club. A lot of program chairmen (looking for any old program) got the new C.E. to speak to their group. Merle Hale encouraged me to become a director in the newly-forming Lincoln Council on Alcoholism. Later on I served several terms on the Lincoln Transportation System Advisory Board. Though L.T.T. paid my membership in the Lincoln Chamber of Commerce, I was never very active in it.

The Lincoln Atmosphere
Lincoln has been a good place for Mary and me. It has had good leadership, a good school system, and a low crime rate. Three colleges/universities have provided more entertainment and educational opportunities than any one person can absorb. It has been a splendid spot to raise a family. As Lincoln approaches a population of 200,000 it is getting a little bigger than I like. But it sure beats the multi-million alternatives. If I were doing it again, I’d do it again. Thank you, Lincoln.

(END of LINCOLN)