By GEORGE FJELD
BRANDON-Before cell phones, before pagers, and even before push-button phones, there was the rotary-dial phone. In 1961, this was the modern marvel of engineering. They allowed one to directly dial another telephone without going through the operator. Before that invention, to make a call, you would “ring” the operator by cranking the handle. The rotary dial phone eliminated the need for a local operator, who, in Brandon, was located on the second floor over the present River Pub. However, new technology created a new problem for the fire department: how to get the word out about a fire. Fortunately, Fire Chief Dan Trombley convinced his friend Joan Thomas to start an answering service.
From 1961 to New Year’s Eve of 1997, Joan and Bob Thomas were the Thomas Answering Service. This was the era before beepers and cell phones. After hours, if you called the doctor, dentist, or veterinarian, you got Joan or Bob. If you called the fire department, police, or ambulance, you got Joan or Bob. If you called the bank, insurance agent, or hairdresser, you got Joan or Bob. If you called in the middle of the night, during the lunch or dinner hour, or on the weekend, you got Joan or Bob. How they did this is nothing short of amazing.
With up to 31 phones arranged on doors upon sawhorses, Joan and Bob’s bedroom was a sea of rotary dials. The phones had a special switch to turn off the ringer when the business was open. Joan insisted that businesses buy their phones so she did not need to bear the expense of a switchboard. Day and night, weekends and holidays, the phones were answered. When multiple phones rang at once, Joan would just touch the phones to see which was ringing. Rare was a full night’s sleep, even after a long hard day. While callers were generally very nice, Joan was a saint. In an emergency, she would talk to the fire, police, and concerned citizens with the same calm, even voice. One fellow called every weekend, early at 2 or 3 am after drinking. Joan said, “He just needed someone to talk to. After it continued, finally I had to say no.” After a late-night police call, Joan would make donuts and coffee for the officers out on the call.
Joan answered the calls about house fires, auto and other accidents, and was the coordinating center. She manned the radio for the fire, police, and rescue. There were 2 large antennas on top of their house, as well as a generator to ensure they could always be available. She had the book of license plate numbers and car owners issued by the state police. Joan got the calls about late-night fights at the local bar, LaDuke’s. She answered the police phone for folks on probation reporting in. Joan got a call from Seeley Hall saying “I didn’t do it! And neither did Tony (his brother).” Joan received this call before a crime was reported! As the Rescue Squad coordinator, sometimes she would send a squad member to the scene and another to get the rig (the ambulance).
With no beepers, Joan would have to track down her customers to deliver messages. I was a primary-care physician in this town and she could track me down anywhere! Joan would call my house and if I wasn’t there, she knew to call the hardware store, lumber yard, gift shop, or restaurant, to track me down. As I wandered through town before I got to a telephone, people would wave me down saying “Joan is looking for you!”
PLENTY OF FOLKS alive today can recall when rotary phones were standard equipment, before push-buttons and then cell phones made them obsolete.
Bob didn’t start out as a partner in the business but it ended up as a critical part of their life together. Each day, as he returned home from his work as a builder, dinner would be ready or there would be a can of spaghetti on the counter indicating Joan had had a bad day and wouldn’t be making supper that night. In addition to answering the phones, Bob Thomas was integral in establishing the Brandon Rescue Squad, which was necessitated when Frank Miller, the funeral director, closed his ambulance service. Bob and Dudley Berry made sure every house in town was numbered in case the state police had to respond to a 911 call at a residence on a rural road.
This is how the Thomases lived their life: “The phone could ring at any moment.”. The television was in the bedroom so Joan could answer the phone without missing the program they were watching. Joan, Bob, and the 2 kids, Linda and Robbie, piled onto the bed. Bob built a porch on the north side of the house, just off the bedroom, so Joan could have some time outside while still listening for the phones to ring. They had an intercom so the phones could be heard in the kitchen as well as the basement laundry room. It was good for the dog as he was never alone. Joan took Wednesdays off with Lil Wetmore or Mimi Brown filling in. They also filled in on occasional weekends so the Thomases could attend an event. Joan and Bob hosted a Christmas party every year at their house so they could attend. For this, Joan would make 6 gallons of eggnog! And they would run out! “It was probably best that we did it at that time of night!” says Joan. When daughter Linda got sick at Otter Valley, a taxi came to get her as mom couldn’t leave the phones. There were few vacations, only 2 in Linda Balch’s memory as a child. One to Massena, NY, where they watched the boats go through the locks on the canal, and the other to the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C.
The Thomases have lived a long life. Bob and Joan were both brought up in Brandon and were married in 1955. They’re still here, living in the house Bob built back in 1955!
