THIRTY-FOUR HOURS AT THE SWITCHBOARD
What One Western Electric Telephone Operator Did.

Not all of the heroes - and heroines - of the Eastland disaster were at the docks. In fact, one of the finest feats of the terrible week of July 24th was performed by a telephone operator miles away from the scene of the disaster. She is Miss Margaret Condon, chief operator of the Western Electric Company's private branch exchange at Hawthorne. She remained on duty at the switchboard from noon of July 24th until late at night July 25th - thirty-four hours of continuous service.

When Miss Condon was seen at the exchange on Wednesday night, July 28th, she had been on duty for a total of nearly seventy-four hours out of the past one hundred and three - more than three whole days out of five; she looked surprisingly fresh after her ordeal, although it was obvious that she had been under a sever strain; and she was expecting to go on duty again early the following morning.

"There wasn't anything particularly heroic about it that I can see," she said, in a lull between calls. "Somebody had to be here, to answer inquiries and make connections, and see that the other girls did their work smoothly; so I stayed. That was all there was to it."

"You see, I was expecting to go to the picnic. I got down to the dock at exactly 7:30 A.M., just as the Eastland went over. I stayed down for a while, watching the rescue work until finally, seeing that there was nothing I could do, I started home. The crowds were so dense that it took me an hour and a half to get there. When I reached the house, at 12:30, my sister met me at the door and said, 'The Western have been trying to get you on the 'phone. They want you to get down to the plant as soon as you can.'"

"I reached Hawthorne at 1 P.M. Saturday, and went right to work, calling up all the girls I could think of, to help out in the rush that I knew was coming. They came on all sorts of hours and worked all sorts of hours. Miss O'Reilly, for instance, who is here now" - there were only two girls on duty Wednesday night - "went on at 3 P.M. Saturday and worked through until 7:30 Sunday morning. Another girl, Miss Schumacher, went on at 4:30 Sunday afternoon, worked until 7:30 Monday morning, and then went on again from 12 to 3 Monday afternoon."

"I was on duty all day Saturday, from 1:00 P.M. on, all Saturday night, all day Sunday, and Sunday night until 11 o'clock. I came back at 6:30 Monday morning and stayed until 8:45 that night. Tuesday I was on from 6:45 A.M. until 8 P.M. I came on today at 7:30 A.M. and leave at 8 tonight. Tomorrow? Yes, I'll be here at 7:30 in the morning."

"Why have I been on duty so long? Well, it was up to somebody to see that the telephone service here is maintained, and I was the one. Ordinarily, you see, our supervisor, Miss Brett, would relieve me; but she's away. Poor girl! What I've done is nothing to what she did. Her sister went down on the boat, yet she was one of the first to respond when I called for volunteers. She came here Saturday afternoon and worked for three hours after she had had word that her sister's body had been identified. It was heartbreaking! And she called me up on Sunday and offered to go to work again to help me out. 'Margaret,' she said, 'I'm useless here at home. I can't sleep. I can't think. I can't do anything. Isn't there something I can do?'"

"How could I let her take my place?"

"Busy?" Miss Condon smiled. "I've answered more calls here during the past five days that I'd get ordinarily in a month. Most of them come from the poor people who are trying to get news of friends and relatives who are missing. Some of them are so distracted that they can't even remember the name of the people they're trying to find. It's terrible to sit here and hear them crying for their dead."

"A great many calls, of course, come from inside, from the relief and information committees. Look here" - she opened a drawer in the supervisor's desk and pulled out a thick bundle of little paper slips. "These are slips for the long-distance calls alone that I've had to make since Saturday. There must be over two hundred of them. I haven't even had time yet to check them and copy them in duplicate. That will have to be done later."

"This board of ours is an eighteen position multiple - that is, it had room for eighteen operators. Well, on Monday night, our heaviest night, we had every position at the board occupied, two extra girls operating at the supervisor's desk, and one on the floor! Even then we had all we could do to keep up with the calls. You couldn't hear yourself think."

Miss Condon stopped to make a connection, then leaned back with a sigh of relief. "Well, the heaviest part of the work is over, I think. The calls have been slackening something like a normal schedule. Yes, I've been working pretty hard. But so have the other girls. So has everybody. You see, we don't any of us feel that we're working for ourselves, or even for the company. We're doing what we can to be of some use to the people who were hit by the Eastland disaster. And we're grateful for being able to do even that much."

FROM A LITTLE FRIEND IN CHICAGO
To the President,
The Western Electric Company,
Chicago, Ill.

Many hearts are brought down by this regrettable accident. We all hope the dear ones who have so suddenly passed away to their new home are with our Savior Jesus, who suffered for us all. I am a boy, twelve years of age, and I regret the loss of your employees very much.

Yours sincerely,
Orrin E. Anderson