My Ruth Paine House Donation

[JimH]

Last November, with the 50th anniversary of the assassination of JFK, the city of Irving, Texas opened the Ruth Paine House museum.  Lee Harvey Oswald's wife, Marina, and two small daughters were living with Ruth Paine when Kennedy was assassinated.  Oswald hid his gun in her garage, and stayed there the night of November 21st.  Anyway...I was looking last November of pictures of the newly restored-to-1963 house when, there in the kitchen, on the counter was a  Western Electric  modular 500 obviously from the 70s or 80s, complete with a modular jack on the wall.  Being a JFK assassination "buff", and thinking this just wasn't right, and that I have a few extra late 50s early 60s black 500s lying around, I contacted the curator of the museum and asked if he'd like a date-correct telephone for his museum.  He wrote back that he would be delighted to accept the telephone.  So I researched Ruth Paine's telephone number, and found it in the Warren Commission report.  BLackburn 3-1628 in area code 214.  I'd debated on what the number card should look like, and even asked a few here what it would have looked like in late 1959, when the Paines moved into the house.  The curator sent me pictures of the telephone installed in the kitchen.  I think it looks much better than the one they had.

The first picture is of the previous modular telephone, and then with the "new old" one from 12/59.  They really did a great job replacing the appliances and even building the old Westinghouse washing machine from scratch.

[Dennis Markham]

Jim, that is awesome!  Congratulations to have YOUR telephone in the museum.  It was also a nice gesture to help get things correct.  I'm surprised they didn't research that from the beginning.  I don't know the time-table on when modular came into existence, but wouldn't there have been clear, Lucite finger wheels by the end of 1963?

I have been watching for a phone dated 11-22-63 for quite some time.  I've never even found a transmitter or receiver from that date.  It was a Friday.  There should be some out there.

Nice job on the phone!

~Dennis

[poplar1]

Black 500s in 1963 still had 7D dials with metal fingerwheels, also Bakelite G1 handsets.

[JimH]

 Thanks, Dennis.  The Paines moved into the house in late 1959, when a black 500 would have had a bakelite G1 handset and a painted metal finger wheel.  My grandparents moved into their house in 1968 and had a black 554 in their basement with a black metal finger wheel. 

As for the modular, according to Wikipedia:

"Modular connectors were originally developed and patented by Bell Telephone Laboratories in 1975.  They replaced the hard-wired connections on most Western Electric telephones around 1976. At the same time, they began to replace screw terminals and larger 3 and 4 pin telephone jacks in buildings". 

The curator said he knew from the beginning that the original phone wasn't quite correct, but he said they "didn't have the budget" for the correct one.  That doesn't make much sense when they went to so much trouble on everything else.  I guess they figured no one else would notice.

Here's a YouTube clip about the opening of the house:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nJPRoprjAE

Here's a picture of the phone before I shipped it up close.

Jim

[HarrySmith]

Very cool story. Congrats on getting a proper phone in there. Do you get credit for it anywhere?

[JimH]

Very cool story. Congrats on getting a proper phone in there. Do you get credit for it anywhere?

The curator said I could get a free tour if I come down to the Dallas area.  I really wasn't looking for any kind of recognition.  I just thought it would be cool if one of "my" phones could be a part of history.

[HarrySmith]

I think a plaque "1959 Western Electric telephone graciously donated by Jim" should suffice

[suhoni56]

Great story! Well done !!!!!

[AE_Collector]

Excellent job Jim!

That is an AE jack. Dallas wasn't GTE territory with that phone. Maybe it was added to the house much more recently than the early days of modular jacks.

Terry

[JimH]

Excellent job Jim!

That is an AE jack. Dallas wasn't GTE territory with that phone. Maybe it was added to the house much more recently than the early days of modular jacks.

Terry

Thanks, everyone.  I saw a picture of the inside of the house when the city of Irving bought it, and you can clearly see that square surface mount modular jack in the picture.  They had to wait until tenants moved out to start working on it.  They even took an old garage door off someone else's house that was the same model that had been there.  I'm sure those people got a brand new garage door out of the deal.

[WesternElectricBen]

That was nice of you, I'm sure everyone will notice it!

The who house is very cool with it being brought back to original.

Ben

[Dan/Panther]

The museum should have a registry located someplace, which includes an inventory of the house, with descriptions of exactly what the item is, what it was  used for, plus information as to where it came from. That shouldn't be too terribly complicated to assemble.

D/P

[JimH]

The application is pending for the Registry of Historic places with the U.S. Department of Interior.  When that goes through, I'll try and get what you are referring to.  I looked online, you can view the application, but that's about it right now.

[JohnInWI]

JimH,

What an awesome donation to the Ruth Paine House!  It really adds to the proper time period!  Also, thank you for the link to the You Tube video!  It's great!

-John