Award Plaques

“Mr. Watson, come here, I need you!” So said Alexander Graham Bell to his assistant in 1876, and those were the first words understood – and heard – through a telephone wire. Bell had spilled battery acid on his pant leg, and he needed help before the acid burned through the fabric. Thus began the honor code for telephone people: Service! 

JE has two bronze commemorative plaques from the 1960s: first, a plaque awarded to two men, Sterling D. Ditchey, Plant Staff Supervisor, and Robert F. Henderson, senior engineers at the Anaheim office, and the other, a plaque awarded to Sidney E. Hutchins, a frame man of Inglewood. 

Both bronze plaques were given to these three Silver awardees and were adjudicated by the Bell System Committee that reviewed incidences of service and valor, selecting men and women of outstanding service for these yearly awards. Both plaques were awarded at the SILVER level; there were bronze and gold award plaques as well. 

The plaques do not state what the three men did to be honored; but they say, “awarded for notable public service.” Once a hero, always a hero: I learned that Sterling Ditchey was awarded, in 2017, the National Order of the Legion of Honor at the rank of Chevalier for his service in WWII. Only 10 such veterans have been so honored. I found an older newspaper article regarding this honor, and found that Ditchey was a Californian (Thousand Oaks?), but a search for a close relative yielded no result. 

Before 1940, silver medals, which were given directly to heroes, were presented in the form of lapel pins with a cash award of $250: after 1940 the award was $500, and a plaque, such as the illustration, was awarded to hang in the hero’s place of employment. Each separate AT&T office was allowed to present only 10 a year, including a narrative description of valor and a painting of the valorous act.

On the two bronze plaques collected by JE you see the round image in relief of Theodore Newton Vail, with the Roman numeration of 1845 and 1920. The Vail Medal was created in 1920 in memory of the President of the American Telegraph and Telephone Company from 1907-1919.

The top shows three Greek heroes with the words “The Vail Medal for Public Service.” The central figure, a female goddess, holds a modern-day telephone cable, symbolizing “communication speeding down the wire, enabling civilization to move ahead.” The other two male Greek style gods – figures on either side of her – are given the names of “loyalty to service,” and “devotion to duty.” 

Who was Theodore Vail? Just two years after the famous Mr. Watson call from Alexander Graham Bell, Vail became the President of the Bell Company, with Alexander Graham Bell as Engineer. Various transmitters were tested, and copper wires were adopted, and Bell bought Western Union; hence the American Telephone and Telegraph Company was born.

Vail was a high-minded individual, arguing that service should trump profits, but of course that philosophy got him fired two years later. And then, 20 years later, he was asked to return as AT&T’s President. The communication industry was in turmoil and needed a strong leader; because of the chaos of the burgeoning communication industry in the USA, every small town had at least three competing phone service providers, and no one could make a call. There was no standardized system and no universal service. 

Vail was a remarkable President and stayed with AT&T for 20 more years. His credo? “No business talk after 6pm. Tranquil thoughts are needed. Refuse to be hurried. Love your work and have pride in it. Be courageous: state both sides of an argument openly. Never let them know you are worried. Service is more important than short term gain. If we don’t tell the truth about ourselves, no one else will.” 

In the many years these awards were given, I have read of heroic exploits awarded to those who were known as heroes: examples include fighting through a blizzard to fix a downed line, saving a child from a burning building or a man from a flood, a female operator remaining at the switchboard for two consecutive days and nights to keep the lines open – or a telephone worker saving a stranded man under a collapsed icy bridge using his cable and a cable car, body belt and safety straps – determinedly winding his way over water and through thick fog to find that one man. The value of these plaques is $450 each.