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Hello Girls

August 18, 2021 by Jim Potter 5 Comments

http://jimpotterauthor.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Sheriff-Fay-F.-Browns-Badge-Episode-11.mp3

· Hello Girls

The Reno County Jail, 15 Avenue B east, Hutchinson, Kansas, opened May 1888. The front (north) portion was the jailer’s/sheriff’s residence. Photographer: W. B. Glines. Credit to Reno County Historical Society.

It’s Wednesday, March 16, 1927. Cora Brown’s thirty-third birthday isn’t until Thursday, but she’s expecting her sister, Occie, and brother-in-law, to arrive any minute to help her celebrate. Occie’s promised to bring a freshly baked cake; Cora and Fay, her husband, will provide tea.

*

“It’s Occie and Sidney,” said Fay. “I’ll get the door.”

“Hello, Fay,” said Occie, handing him a picnic basket and receiving a kiss. “Where is she? Does she suspect anything?”

“She’s got the playing cards out,” said Fay, “and paper and pencil. I’ll take your coats.”

“Hello, Sidney,” said Cora.

“Happy birthday!” chirped Sidney.

“Thanks, Sidney,” said Cora, as she kissed him on the cheek.

“You’re gaining on me now,” said Occie, as she hugged her sister. “You’ll be forty before you know it.”

In minutes, the four were preparing to sit down when the doorbell rang. “If that’s an officer with a prisoner, I swear, I’ll tell him to come back in an hour, and I’m not joking,” promised Fay.

When Fay returned, he wasn’t alone. In filed a chorus of thirty off-duty Bell Telephone operators, all friends of Cora’s from her fourteen years working as an operator or information clerk. Originally hired at the Missouri & Kansas Telephone Company, Cora had gradually met most of her female house guests at Southwestern Bell Telephone. They had worked together until her resignation in November, after Fay’s victory in the county election.

*

“Fay,” asked Bertha, “what are you getting Cora for her birthday?”

“I’m taking her to the Midland Theater to see the movie The Taxi Dancer,” replied Fay. “It stars Joan Crawford and Owen Moore.”

But I thought you two already attend the movies every weekend, when you’re not out catching criminals,” Bertha said.

“That’s right,” Fay agreed with a wink and a smile, “but it’s the one gift I’m sure she’ll like and one she can’t exchange.”

*

Sidney said to Fay, “I read in the newspaper that you were called out to Partridge last night around midnight. Is that right?”

“Unfortunately, yes,” said Fay, “a county resident was threatened by four men. Right now, I’ve got them charged with disturbing the peace, but I’m not getting the full story just yet from any of them.”

Did you get any sleep at all?” asked Sidney. “The newspaper said you arrested Matt Allen on a warrant at 3 o’clock this morning for intent to kill.”

“Yeah,” said Fay, “I was already up and figured I’d rouse him from bed. The felony warrant alleged Allen had thrust a gun into the side of an employee at Anderson’s Restaurant. This was after the worker refused to let Allen spike a beer.”

*

Cora asked Myrtle, “Has Mr. Quigley said anything about the Senate voting to keep the ‘blue law’ ban in place?”

“He’s got a renewed bounce in his step,” answered Myrtle. “None of us were prepared to work seven days a week. We’re pleased the Public Utilities Commission is fighting any changes to the law; so are the street car conductors. Sunday should remain a day for ourselves, church, and the family.”

*

“Sheriff,” said a guest, “have you any word on those Colorado bank robbers who were nearly caught outside Garden City?”

“The Finney County sheriff thinks they wounded or killed two of the suspects who robbed the bank near Colorado Springs,” answered Sheriff Brown. “Two of the men have been identified as Eddie Jenkins and Bob Collins. Collins is an escapee from the Pratt County Jail.”

The newspaper said the car they used in the bank robbery had been stolen right here in Hutchinson,” said the guest. “Is that true?”

“Yes,” agreed the sheriff, “that’s one reason why our men and the Vigilantes have spent so much time watching the roads into Hutchinson, in case they retrace their route.”

*

“Are our subscribers still forgetting to hang up their phones?” Cora asked a few nearby ladies.

The women shook their heads disgustedly, as if the public purposefully ignored a fundamental rule of life. If a receiver was left off the hook, the company sometimes had to send out trouble men to notify the subscribers to replace the receivers on the hooks.   

*

“What’s this world coming to?” asked Miss Iva Lewis, speaking to anyone who would listen.

“Whatever do you mean?” asked Lois Gish, “we’re much better off today than we were a few years ago.”

“Increasingly, our country has more bank robberies,” stated Iva. “I couldn’t believe that bandits cut the telephone lines and then bombed the money truck on the way to the Pittsburgh Coal Company mine. I heard the driver of the truck and two guards were injured badly. Is anyone safe anywhere, anymore?”

Fay had stopped talking and was listening to Iva, who was increasingly anxious. This wasn’t the birthday celebration he had envisioned for Cora.

Fay caught Occie’s eye, rotated his wrist like he was reeling in a fish, and gave a sideways head-motion towards the nearby Victrola. It was time for some music, dancing, games, and food. Fay hadn’t planned the party, but he figured that either a game of charades or some Charleston dance music could spark a fire and encourage an evening of fun and laughter.

In the future, at the office, Fay was willing to talk to Miss Iva Lewis about common criminals, gangsters, and machine-gun mobsters, but not during Cora’s party.

*

Flossie Pate, 20, had received her on-the-job telephone operator training from Cora.

Playing a round of charades, Flossie silently read the written phrase to herself. Ready, she hunched over and held her hands open with the palms facing up, inches above her ears. Cora, her teammate, guessed the word ‘Atlas,’ then ‘world.’

Flossie held up one finger and Cora shouted, ‘first.’ Flossie nodded, then she used both hands in a fluid, parallel motion, from top to bottom, showing a curvy human figure, and added a half-circle above her chest to represent breasts. “Woman,” was Cora’s knowing response.

Finally, Flossie sat on a chair, put on a pair of imaginary ear coverings, and started pushing invisible cords and plugs into holes on a wall. Ready to guess the answer, Cora announced confidently: “World’s first woman telephone operator, Emma Nutt.”

“Correct!” announced the judge, followed by cheers, and a round of applause.

*

Fay turned off a few of the lights in the room. Occie entered carrying a cake with green icing and lit candles as part of the double Saint Patrick-Cora Brown anniversary celebration.

“Speech!” someone yelled.

Cora obliged before making a wish and blowing out the candles.

“Each of you will always be my family,” said Cora. “We’re the ‘Hello Girls,’ the ones who are a much better fit connecting phone calls than any young boy or man. We’re the efficient worker, the soothing voice, ‘the voice with a smile.’ Unfortunately, we’re barely paid half as much as men for our labor, but better days are ahead.

“I’ve learned tonight that while you connect each call, instead of repeating the phone number as I did, you follow a new procedure using two powerful words. I’ll use the same words right now. From the bottom of my heart, thank you.”

Cora took a deep breath, opened her mouth, leaned forward, and blew out thirty-three birthday candles.

*

Until next time, happy writing and reading.

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Filed Under: Blog posts Tagged With: Bell Telephone, Bob Collins, Cora Brown, Eddie Jenkins, Emma Nutt, Fay Brown, Flossie Pate, Hello Girls, Jim Potter, Joan Crawford, Kansas Authors Club, Midland Theater, Missouri & Kansas Telephone, Occie Hamilton, Owen Moore, Pittsburgh Coal Company, Reno County Jail, Reno County Sheriff, Sheriff Fay Brown, Sheriff Fay Brown's Badge, Sidney Hamilton, The Taxi Dancer, Vigilantes

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Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Alex says

    August 18, 2021 at 9:11 am

    Wonderful party!
    Indeed, what’s this world coming to!

    Reply
    • Jim Potter says

      August 18, 2021 at 1:05 pm

      Some things are improving & some are getting worse.

      Reply
  2. Nancy Julien Kopp says

    August 18, 2021 at 11:47 am

    Nice post, Jim

    Reply
    • Jim Potter says

      August 18, 2021 at 1:05 pm

      Thanks, Nancy.

      Reply
  3. Marilyn Bolton says

    August 19, 2021 at 2:19 pm

    Went from gloom & doom at the party to lighthearted celebration!

    Reply

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What People Are Saying

Denise Low, author of Jackalope (Red Mountain Press)

Jim Potter is a cop, retired, but he brings deep understanding of this job to his novel Taking Back the Bullet: Trajectories of Self-Discovery. This layered novel has literary dimensions as characters explore crisis situations. Congratulations to this fine writer for his debut novel.

Rebecca from Proud Police Wife

Taking Back the Bullet is an emotional, yet captivating novel. Jim Potter does a superb job of intertwining each character and putting their individual identities on display. All law enforcement storylines are a true reflection of Potter’s years as a police officer because they are realistic and relatable. This is a book I highly recommend.

Dennis Perrin, educator

Masterful storytelling, exquisite character development, so real as to HURT and HOPE, a real page turner. Begs for stage, screenwriters, and visual episodic development a.k.a. TV series . . . Thanks Jim Potter for telling it like it is AND providing us visions of how it could be. Well done!

Rebecca Schillaci

As a former law enforcement officer, I found the story very relatable as it details the life of a law enforcement officer and the struggles some face throughout their careers. . . Taking Back the Bullet is a journey of understanding, respect, and forgiveness . . .

Sheryl Remar

I enjoyed the different stories of this book because Tom, James, and Suanna, the three main characters, represent in their own way the different struggles with themselves and society’s idea of what is normal.

John & Cindy Morrill, 20 years Air Force retired, 17 years law enforcement

I enjoyed your book. When I am looking for a new read, I always read the first page, last page and choose a random page somewhere in the middle before I decide to buy it. You had me on all three pages. I also like reading a book where you can relate to the characters and the settings in which they live and work. It makes a story more realistic if you can say, I am familiar with the area; I know where that town is or I have traveled that street. It was easy to relate to the characters. In one way or another, I have met them all somewhere in my journeys.

Judy Hawk

. . . I was impressed with the Native American information as well as the depth of character development . . . .

Wynona Winn, PhD, retired school superintendent

Three main characters walk different paths but with the same destination – each coping with his or her self-discovery, self-identity, and self-realization. Much like their earlier counterparts – Huck Finn and Holden Caulfield – their journeys are often joyous, often tedious and often tragic.

Diana Dester

Good story line, building the characters along the way. Great job!

Deb Theis, LSCSW, clinical therapist/hypnotherapist

Jim Potter has done it again! After his book, Cop in the Classroom: Lessons I’ve Learned, Tales I’ve Told, Jim has written another great work. In Taking Back the Bullet: Trajectories of Self-Discovery, Jim Potter takes us on an insightful journey into the lives and relationships of numerous characters. Jim is such a talented storyteller that the reader quickly becomes immersed and has a ‘bonding experience’ with each of the characters, feeling their joy, fear, passion and pain. Jim’s novel speaks to the empowerment of persistence with the characters as they work through their trials. As a therapist, I appreciated the heartfelt struggles from each of the characters and their diversity. I also found value in the novel’s understanding of society’s misunderstanding of both mental health and other conditions in which people struggle. The novel contains rich exposure to various realities that many of us do not know about . . . but should. When I finished this captivating novel, I was wanting to read the sequel! It was an honor and a wonderful, mesmerizing experience reading this book. Congratulations, Jim!

Jane Holzrichter

I finished it last night around midnight. What a great piece of work. It kept me intrigued all the way to the end.

Sean McArdle, Winchester, England

Retired police officer Potter’s novel centres on very disparate characters and through the tried and tested means of gradually introducing each one, builds a sense of anticipation about what is going to happen to them. This often used methodology is not easy to do well but is superbly handled by Potter who knows how to give enough detail to bring the characters to life, yet not too much so as to slow down the pace of the developing story. A climactic event affects the main characters and it is at this point Potter’s deep knowledge of people and police procedures really hits home; page by page we read how a seemingly simple, though terrible occurrence, can have huge consequences. To Potter’s credit the story does not have a completely conclusive or simplistic ending. Instead it leaves the reader thinking about how the events of a single minute can affect lives forever. I would whole heartedly recommend this book not as a crime novel or even as a novel about crime but as a beautiful and positive affirmation about what it is to be human and how ultimately it is relationships which matter more than events.

Morgan Penner

Taking Back the Bullet is a novel that provides the reader with a window into the world of law enforcement. As the novel unfolds, the reader is able to see how split-second decisions alter the lives of the main characters in the story. Taking Back the Bullet also explores how humanity is impacted by mental illness. One of my favorite quotes from Taking Back the Bullet is “We’re all just a critical moment from being disabled or mentally ill, and we don’t want to think about it.” The novel also provides the reader an opportunity to gain a better understanding of how mental illness impacts the individuals, their family, friends, and society. Taking Back the Bullet is a story of forgiveness and overcoming life’s struggles and tragedies.

Steve Becker

I’m impressed. It was an excellent read. . . . I hope you continue with more projects in the future.

Larry Kruckman, anthropologist

Jim Potter displays ethnographic skills in Taking Back the Bullet: Trajectories of Self-Discovery, creating vivid scenes and fascinating characters. The Greeks had a word for subcultures and people’s behavior: ‘ethos,’ or ‘ways of being.’ In colorful, sometimes marvelous detail, this novel captures various people and settings . . . the ethos of rural Kansas: a jail, art fair, powwow, rehab center, courtroom, albinos, and even someone in the throes of postpartum depression. So detailed are the descriptions that they must be drawn from the author’s personal experience. Besides the artfully created characters such as the struggling jailer and husband Tom Jennings, local artist Jesse Thomas, and Native American Joe Morningcloud, there is a tight story line that grabs your attention and won’t let go. Human tensions, love, conflict, joys and sorrows are all there. Magically, all the many pieces come together in a final crescendo, giving hope that even when we find ourselves in big trouble we can survive. This is a novel I highly recommend!

Larry Kruckman
Anthropologist
Karleen Wilson-Moon

Terrific story relevant to today’s social issues . . . well written . . . likable characters . . . insightful perspective from an insider in law enforcement.

Karleen Wilson-Moon

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