If you wanted to have a private conversation before 1977 in St. Ignace, the phone was not the tool for you. That's because operators would use a headset such as this to connect your phone to the one you wanted to call. Unfortunately, since they also had to disconnect the call when you were done talking, the operator would listen to your entire conversation. If ever you wanted to know what was going on in town, the operators were the ones in the know!