1

By the early 1960s Northern Electric no longer had access to the US Bell Labs' designs. It set up its own design group in the late 1950s so it could design products specifically for the Canadian market instead or adapting them as it did in the past.

2

Contempra Phone
Circa 1981
Globally

Credits:
Ken Lyons

3

Contempra Handset
Circa 1981
Globally

Credits:
Ken Lyons

4

The Contempra phone was one of the first new designs by Northern Electric's R & D labs. It was designed by John Tyson and entered production in 1968. This very popular phone was also manufactured under license in Europe. The Contempra was selected as one of the most important Canadian designs of the 20th century. It was available in rotary dial as shown and Touch Tone.

5

NE-1A2 Key Telephone System
Circa 1970
Throughout Canada

Credits:
Northern Circuit - Summer / Autumn 1970

6

The standard key telephone required a large amount of equipment that necessitated a lot of wiring changes when rearrangements or new features were needed. Northern designed the NE-1A2 plug-in key equipment. It greatly facilitated the installer's task when changes were required, since he no longer had to rewire equipment.

7

Business Set - Six Key
Circa 1976
Throughout Canada and USA

Credits:
Telecommunications Museum

8

The standard key phone of the 1970s was predominantly black.

9

Logic 10 & 20 Phones
Circa 1974
Throughout Canada

Credits:
Ken Lyons

10

The Logic series phones of 1974 were designed to provide more lines than the standard six-button business phone. They were available in 10 and 20 lines, but since they were used with NE-1A2 key equipment they needed large cables to connect to the equipment.

11

Third Plant - Shearer Street
1914 - 1980
Montréal, Québec, Canada

Credits:
Northern Electric Advertisement

12

Life at the Mother House

A 1916 issue of a local trade magazine described the Northern Electric Shearer St plant as the largest industrial building in the British Empire. Its construction was massive 11 million bricks, 12,152 tons of steel, and columns supported by 5151 piles driven into the ground. The building contained 22 acres of floor space distributed on 8 floors. That's a lot of brick and mortar. From its opening in 1914 to its closing 65 years later it was referred to by the employees as the "Mother House".

The Shearer St complex was perhaps the best example of manufacturing vertical integration in the Montreal area if not in all of Canada. It was often said "that if the Northern can't do it in the Shearer St plant there is no one else in Montreal who can". To many the Mother House had its own mystic, personality and charm and like a mother she sent her children off to the two great wars and supported them on the home front and looked after many during the great depression. The Mother House was more than brick and mortar it was about people, ordinary people that worked played and socialized together and built a community within a community.

This story is about the many people who worked at the Mother House over the years the "Runyonesque" type characters who contributed to the success of the Northern. At its peak the Mother House had 5000 plus employee's on a single shift. Their backgrounds were diverse, they were: tool makers, design engineers, technicians, electricians, millwrights, carpenters, general labourers and most of them came from the surrounding communities the Point (Point St. Charles), Goose Village, Griffintown, St. Henri, Ville Émard, Verdun, LaSalle and NDG areas. Their origins were French Canadian, Irish, Scots, Brits, Italians, Polish to name a few, around the place it was like the United Nations.

On any given shift "The Mother House" had a population equivalent to that of a medium size town and like the TV show The Naked City that proclaimed "there are a million stories in the Naked City" there are a large number about the Mother House. Every employee of the Mother House has a favourite story to tell about their experiences working there. Most of the stories are humorous and they speak well of the camaraderie among the employees. Here are a few of the many escapades in The Mother House ... those that can be told.

The fifth floor of "A" section was home to some of painting and plating facilities in Shearer St. Plant. It housed a very large infra red baking oven. Newly painted parts were hung on hangers and moved slowly through the baking oven via an overhead conveyor (much like the conveyors you see at the local dry cleaning establishment). One evening while walking a long "A" wing I could smell food being cooked, chicken to be precise. I looked around and saw nothing peculiar just a few workers sitting and chatting but it was their dinner break. Still curious as to were the wonderful smell of Bar-B-Q chicken was coming from, it became evident the odour was coming from the large infra red baking oven. A peak through one of the observation windows in side of the oven revealed 2 chickens hanging from the conveyor and moving slowly through the oven. It sure smelled good. I don't know if they had any fries with their chicken that night, probably, but how they fried them well that's another story.

The elevators played a major role in the operation of the Mother House it had 8 freight and 5 passenger elevators. There was one particularly large freight elevator in the building between "I" and "J" sections and during the depression years one senior manager stored his car on one of the vacant upper floors for the winter. The car was brought up in the oversize elevator, the bumpers removed along with any other chrome trim and sent to the plating shop for chromium plating and re-installed in time for spring.

There was a secretary in one of the engineering departments a fine red headed Irish colleen from Verdun. Being the only girl in the family she learned to hold her own with her three brothers. She took no guff from anyone and could take the joking and wise cracking as well as dish it out. Love found this feisty colleen and she proudly announced that she would be marrying a young lad of Italian ancestry. As the wedding day approached the girls around the office announced that they were going to have a bridal shower for her. One of the male technicians asked one of the organizers what the guys could do. He was informed that a bridal shower was a women only affair and it was made very clear that male participation was not part of the plan and we could organize something for the groom to be.

The problem with that idea was the groom was not known by any of the guys and he was not a Northern employee. So it was decided they would organize their own bridal shower for her and hold it on the Thursday, before the wedding day, during the lunch break. On the Thursday morning arrangements were made with one of the janitors to deliver one of mobile trash collecting wagons to the engineering lab on the 7th floor. The wagon was decorated with crepe paper streamers and with large signs for each side identifying it as the "Italian Welcome Wagon".

At high noon the welcome wagon was transported from the lab to the office on the 8th floor. The Welcome Wagon was escorted by a contingent of engineers and technicians as it made its way through the office area to her desk. The MC for the occasion rode in the Welcome Wagon singing the plaintiff plea of O Sole Mio. The bride to be was thrilled to see us and graciously accepted the many gifts we presented her. Some of the gifts she received: a pair of black stockings (with the instructions that they were to be worn only at Italian festive occasions), an Italian Cook Book, a record album of Italian love songs, a few of the song titles were penciled out and new ones added like "Songs for the Honey Moon or Is that all there Is" along with a few other choice ditties. She was also presented with a financial gift, a collection taken up among the guys. She was awe struck, but thanked us all deeply with the words "I'll get you guys for this"

Moon lighting was a fairly common occurrence and it wasn't hard to find someone who in their off hours repaired TV sets, did plumbing, electrical wiring, automotive repairs you name it, the Mother House had all the skills available. If you needed your watch repaired you could go to any of the major jewellery stores wait 10 days and pay (in those days 20-25 dollars just to have it cleaned and adjusted. One of the janitors was a watch and clock repair specialist. To engage his services you waited at the end of "I" wing and pushed the button for the freight elevator (he was also one of the freight elevator operators) soon the doors opened and whatever material that had to be on loaded or offloaded was taken care. He always wore long sleeved coverall and when he rolled up either sleeve he had ten or so watches on each arm. You gave him your watch along with an explanation of the problem and you would be advised to come back in a couple of days to pick it up. No receipts were given for the watches, you just left them with him.

When the day came to pick up your watch you again went to the freight elevator. He would roll up his sleeve and you identified your watch and you would be informed what the cost of the repair was. To my knowledge not a watch was ever lost nor had someone try to take one that wasn't their's. The cost of repairs was very reasonable usually in the order of $5.00 or so. If the watch was not repairable it would be given back to the owner, but in those cases the owner would tell him he could keep it for parts. This helped keep the cost of repairs down.

Christmas time was always special around the Mother House, until the mid 1970's the employees worked half a day on Dec 24th but not much work if any was ever done. The women in the various manufacturing shops cleaned all the work benches and covered them all with paper table cloths. They set out plates of home made sandwiches and pastries, candies you name it. Just about every nationality you could think of worked at the Mother House so when the food was set out the ladies tried to outdo each other with their home made specialties from their native land. The food was incredible.

If you were fortunate enough, as I was to visit several different shop departments (after all I did provide engineering support to them) The party started at 7:00 o'clock in the morning and wrapped up at about 11:30 and the ladies made sure that no food went to waste (the number of doggie bags with samples of all the different pastries was unbelievable.

It was also quite common for the various departments to organize Christmas parties usually scheduled after hours on a Friday before Christmas at one of the local clubs. You partied from 4:00 o'clock Friday afternoon to Saturday morning and for those that had to work on the Saturday they left the party and went back to work.

One thing that was not tolerated was drinking on the premises but that didn't stop some people from trying. One Dec 24th I had just go in to work and was taking off my coat when one of my co-workers comes in and plunks a large jar containing a clear liquid and says "take care of this in the lab for me" at that point one the managers was coming out of his office and saw the jar and asked what was in it. My confrere removes the lid off sticks his middle finger in the jar and then rubs his finger behind his ear and says "just after shave lotion" puts the lid back on the jar and walks out leaving the jar on my desk.

The manager looking at the jar and me and then with a stern look says "That better not be alcohol in that jar" and walks away. After he left, I took the lid off the jar and smelled the contents and to my surprise, I discovered that Beefeaters made an after shave lotion. From the stern look on the face of the manager, I knew that this jar was going to have to disappear. Because I did not want to be called a Christmas party pooper, I stuck the jar in a large mailing envelope and headed for the engineering lab. Our lab contained a temperature chamber that was used for temperature cycle testing of equipment it could heat equipment to several hundred degrees F or cool to -30 degrees. I placed the jar in the temperature chamber along with a plastic tray that was being used to make ice cubes and lowered the temperature as far as I could...

My confrere came by later in the morning wanting to know what I did with his jar of holiday spirits. I told him it was being chilled in the temperature chamber with the ice cubes. Well by the time he got to the jar it was very heavily frosted and the contents as hard as a rock. They say that necessity is the mother of invention and that most great inventions were a result of discovering something other than what was originally planned. Well on Dec 24th I created what I thought was the mother of all inventions, "The Ginsicle". Ok so it never really caught on but it saved a few guys from running afoul of company rules and possibly saved their jobs. The frozen ginsicle was removed from the building later that day. Christmas was always interesting at the Mother House.

About the author: a retired Northern Electric employee worked at the Mother House for 11 years up to the time is was closed in the mid seventies.

13

Chest Phone
1970 - 1980
Throughout Canada

14

Northern Electric sold phone components to other manufacturers, such as Deco-Tel, who would make specialty housings.