THE STORY OF THE WHITE SHEET

 Can you even imagine life today without having a telephone? When we were growing up on East Monbo Road near Troutman there were seven children in our family. Our parents were T. P. and Banie Loftin. Not many people on our road had a telephone at that time of our youth. Some who had one early on were: Ulysses Ostwalt, Uncle El Troutman, Sam Ostwalt, Jettie Troutman and our grandmother Martha Jane Troutman Lytton. There were probably others that I don’t know about.

An unusual thing about those early phones was that they were the old box style that were installed on the wall. Another odd thing was that every person’s phone had its own particular ring. Rings were in long and short sequence rings and no two were alike. They were all on the same party line so everyone knew when someone else on the line got a call. I remember the phone at my Grandmother Lytton’s house, where Forrest and Margaret Loftin and family live today.

If you had no phone, how did you get important messages? In our situation, our very close neighbor and my mother’s dear friend, Jettie Troutman, devised a way to get us the message. She would just hang out a white sheet, which was visible from our kitchen window, to let us know there was a message for us. Then one of us kids would ride a bike or walk to Jettie’s house to learn about the message.

Sometimes the message would be from Mr. Henry Brown calling for our father, T. P. Loftin, to come work for him in the construction business. Our Grandmother Lytton would often call to get a message to our mother, Banie. When sister Thelma Loftin Tolbert was in nursing school she could get in touch with our family if necessary.

Colleen McDade Nesbit and I had a twice weekly radio show in which she sang popular songs with my piano accompaniment. Sometimes we needed to arrange practice times and travel arrangements to the station, since neither of us had a car nor could drive. Miss Jettie’s white sheet advised us of our need to converse.

Sister Hazel remembers that we did not have a telephone in 1947 when she married Rex Tolbert, and neither she nor any of our family remembers just when we finally did get one. But if it was really important, we could stay in contact with the outside world with something as simple as a white sheet, and a friendly, wonderful neighbor.

Martha Loftin Kirby

High Point, NC

August 1^st, 2006

Troutman Family Historical Association – 2006 Reunion