Go back a few more years to the "party line". Every house on the line was assigned a ring code. One for Smith, two for Jones etc. Not many secrets in those days. Then there was the crank phone where you had to turn the crank to generate some voltage and attract the attention of the operator. You'd tell her who you wanted to talk to and she would make the connection.
The operator was a great resource, I can remember back in the 60's asking the operator how to make pie crust.
Back in about 1973 I worked for Bell Canada in Toronto and all the operators went on strike. All the managers were given a 10 minute course in running a switchboard and we all became instant operators. What blast that was, plug into the right trunk line and we could dial the world toll free! Onced a connection was made for a customer, you had to flip a switch to stop monitoring the call. Every once in awhile you'd flip the monitor switch to see if the call was still active. Visualize this, big room with 40 or 50 operator stations all being operated by management. It's 3 AM and very quiet, a long distance call comes in from a distant boy friend to his hot local girl friend. He's explaining in great detail what he wants to do with her. Some where in the room someone snickers and the caller yells "who's there?" and 40 or 50 monitor switches click at the same time. Then we all roared laughing. After a minute or two you could hear the monitor switches clicking again. I'll never forget that night in the downtown Hamiliton switchboard.
Today it's all computerized, no switchboards, no switches, no people and no phone lines. My house has internet phone and cell phone. If the power goes down, we have no phone at all. In the old days before internet phone, phone power was supplied using battery banks in the switch office, so even in a power blackout you could call for help if you needed it. No more.