Once upon a time there was no television. If that sounds incredible, there was an earlier time when there was no radio. Also, no telephones. Even if people had owned radios, TV sets and telephones, they couldn't have used them. Their homes were not wired for electricity or telephone service. All of those inventions, and many others, came into widespread use in South Bend Township within the lifetime of the oldest people living here today!

I grew up in a home without a phone. During the depression, a phone was considered a luxury when there were many other bills that needed paid first out of limited funds. During my high school years I was fortunate to have an aunt living next to us who was a telephone operator for ATT and she was understanding enough to walk over to call me to her phone when I had a call. It was only in 1943 when my two brothers and I were in the armed services during the war that my folks were able to afford a phone. Today even many teenagers have their own cellular phone.

Early telephones had no dials or pushbuttons. To make a call, people picked up the receiver, turned the handle, and waited for an operator to place their call. Six to ten families shared the same party line. If someone else was talking when you wanted to call, you waited until they were finished. Even as late as 1964 when Marguerite and I moved to the village of South Bend, we had a party-line phone which served four residents. We were always aware when we heard a slight click that someone on the party line was lifting up their phone and listening in. It wasn't until a year later that we were down to a two-party line for several more years, and then a private line became available.

Electricity is the power source for many of the appliances we use every single day. They include radio, television, toasters, refrigerators, freezers, microwave ovens, alarm clocks, heating and air conditioning, washers and dryers, vacuum cleaners and many others. Residential electrical service which makes it possible to operate those appliances can be traced to one single invention.

In 1879 Thomas Alva Edison invented the electric light bulb. Before that time people had used candles and kerosene lamps. Some cities had gas street lighting. Some wealthy families had gas lights in their homes.

In 1882 the nation's first electric generating plant was supplying power to electric light bulbs in New York City. Two years later electric lights were installed in a Pittsburgh restaurant. That same year George Westinghouse began manufacturing electric light bulbs in New York City. By 1932 fewer than one-third of the farms in rural areas such as South Bend had electricity. During the mid-1930s the Rural Electrification Administration (REA) funded electric line extensions into local rural areas and by the late 30s most homes were wired.

Since pioneer days, people had kept milk, butter and eggs in springhouses or in a cool corner of the basement. Apples, potatoes, carrots, turnips and cabbage were kept in root cellars. A root cellar might be a cave dug into a hillside or a wooden bin lined with straw.

Without refrigeration there was no way to keep meat fresh during warm weather. Meat was limited to freshly killed chickens, ducks or turkey, or whenever a farmer slaughtered a pig, lamb or steer. At other times people ate smoked or dried meat.

During the early 1900s some communities had ice-making plants. Blocks of ice were sold door- to-door. The ice was placed in insulated wooden ice boxes where butter, milk, eggs and meat could be kept cool.

Most families continued to use springhouses and basements for refrigeration. In the mid-1930s fewer than one of every three families had electrical power to operate a modern refrigerator even if they had owned one. A few homes had gas refrigerators.

The dirt roads were either knee deep in muds or rutted and dusty in dry spells. The first automobile to reach South Bend Township probably didn't travel very far without being hauled out of a ditch by a team of horses. Commercial radio broadcasting began in 1920 on KDKA in Pittsburgh. But not many families in Cranberry Township owned a radio because so few homes were wired for electricity. The first radio broadcasts heard here were tuned in on crystal sets. A crystal set was a very simple radio that did not require electricity. Instructions to make crystal sets are found in most encyclopedias. Parts are available in hobby shops and electronic stores.

By the 1930s and 1940s--the Golden Age of radio broadcasting--more and more homes were wired for electricity.

Barber Shop Pole of 1920s