HESCH HISTORY: One ringy-dingy....

This branch of the Austrian Hesch family is descended from Johann Hesch and his wife Marya (Schlinz) Hesch, who came to America from Oberschlagles, Bohemia with three sons: Paul, Mathias, and Anton. +++Johann & Marya settled in Buffalo County, Wisconsin but moved to Pierz, Mn in about 1885. .+++Mathias settled in Waumandee, Wisconsin and moved to Pierz in 1911. +++Anton never married but farmed with his dad in Agram Township, where he died in 1911.+++And Paul, my great grandfather, settled five miles away, in Buckman, Minnesota. He died there in 1900.

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Thursday, March 11, 2010

One ringy-dingy....

I remember the operator asking, "Number, please?" when I picked up the receiver--in 1954 or 55 in St Cloud, Minnesota.

This week, Larry was curious about when Buckman connected to the outside world by telephone, and he went looking online. The startling thing was that he found the answer (!) from "Telephone Magazine", in 1904:

And, even better, this from 1906:

We wondered if that's really all it took--a few people deciding to string lines? Evidently, it was, more or less. I saw an earlier bit in Telephone Magazine that insisted on nothing less than #8 gauge wire be used.

(BTW, the pic above is a random operator in 1925--she's no one we know...lol)