A Real Operator

With more than three decades of service on the front lines of the communications industry, Vera Acrey has seen amazing advances in technology – but she’s not so certain the world is a better place for it all.

Vera Acrey recalls her days as a switchboard operator
for the Conroe Telephone Company back in 1952.

Acrey started her communications career as a telephone operator for the Conroe Telephone Company back in 1952 – years before dial service was available in Montgomery County.

“I was still a student at high school,” said Acrey. “I worked nights after school and on weekends.”

Prior to joining the phone company, Acrey worked at Brownlee Pharmacy for 50 cents an hour, but she was lured away by the promise of 98 cents an hour to work the switchboard.

A scene from the Conroe Telephone Company (in the Madeley Building neat to Talley’s Domino Hall on Simonton) . An operator would ask “Number please?” and the person making the call would respond with a three-digit number.

“I was thrilled at the time and remember thinking how much more money I’d have,” said Acrey. “I really enjoyed the work.”

Life was simpler back in the 50s, when the population of Conroe was around 10,000, Acrey observed. Crowds would gather out front of the Goodyear building in downtown Conroe to watch to television, she recalled. Many would go to the drugstore for sodas, shakes and malts.

Work in the cramped offices of the Madeley Building was difficult, said Acrey. Her boss, Morris Bateman, draped a tarp over the back of the switchboard to keep it dry when it rained – often sending a cascade of water into the retail dress shop below.

Working alone at night was also a challenge for the young woman.

Acrey shows off the identification badge she wore
as a telephone operator back in 1952.

“I’d hear footsteps on the stairs or noises in the walls and get scared,” she said. “Turns out there were plenty of rats having a tea party all around me.”

To bolster her courage and help her stay awake, Acrey said she often called Calvin Blake, night manager at Hulon’s Gulf Service Station.

“It wasn’t that busy for either of us at night so we’d chat and keep each other company,” said Acrey.

Early phone service was different that it is today. Most customers in the Conroe area had party lines with two, four or as many as eight houses on the same line. Different rings would alert customers who the call was for – though it was possible, and common, for people to listen in on party line calls by their neighbors.

Vera Acrey displays a photo of her husband Bobby, a Conroe policeman, to whom she was married for 57 years

When business owners, lawyers and doctors were planning to step out of their offices for a while, they would ring the operator and ask her to take messages until they returned.

“It was a very interesting job,” said Acrey. “I got to know a lot of people – and an awful lot about a lot of people.”

The job lasted until late 1954 when dial service came to the Conroe Telephone Company and traditional operators weren’t needed. Rather than relocate to Lufkin with the company, Acrey elected to stay in Conroe with her new husband Bobby and raise a family.

In 1962, Acrey was offered a job in the business office – handling directories, assigning phone numbers and collecting money from area pay phones.

Among Vera Acrey’s keepsakes from her 35-year career with the Conroe Telephone Company is a collection of vintage phone books dating back to 1951.

“I did a wide range of jobs for the phone company,” she said. “Conroe was growing so fast – it was a real struggle to keep up.”

But keep up she did until retirement in June of 1996. After 35 years of service to the company, she was given her company chair at her retirement party.

“For more than 20 years they kept trying to get me to get a new chair,” she laughed. “I was happy with what I had and didn’t want to change.”

That’s not far from Acrey’s sentiment about the evolution of modern phone service.

“Cell phones and all the new technology is wonderful,” she said, “but it’s changed the way people connect to each other. They talk more, but the connection isn’t there.”

Acrey is concerned that the value of spending time face to face is being lost by instantaneous, but often meaningless texting and instant communication.

“Back in the day you made a call for a specific reason,” she observed, “now people constantly touching base for no real reason. I think we’re losing something.”

A Texas Historical Marker highlighting the history of the Conroe Telephone Exchange. The marker is in front of the Madeley Building on Simonton Street in downtown Conroe.