That Rotary Phone in the Forest Can Ease Your Grief

At the end of 2020, Corey Dembeck heard the awful news that the 4-year-old daughter of a friend had suddenly died after a bout with strep led to sepsis. The US Army veteran and former photojournalist wanted to do something immediate for the family of little Joelle Sylvester, so he picked up a rotary phone and some tools and supplies and headed to a quiet forest in nearby Squaxin Park, in Olympia, Washington—where he promptly attached the phone to a cedar tree so Joelle's loved ones could come and "talk" to her, reports Reuters. The phone wasn't actually hooked up to anything: It's a "wind phone," a concept that first popped up in Otsuchi, Japan, in 2011 after a tsunami killed thousands there, per a 2021 article in Seattle Refined.

Dembeck remembered the story of that wind phone and decided to replicate it, without asking anyone for permission to set it up; he figured "it was better to ask for forgiveness than permission, especially because it was going to be something that was hard to explain," per Reuters. After word started getting around, crowds of visitors began converging on the phone. The city of Olympia found out about it, too, but authorities decided Dembeck's creation didn't need to be forgiven—it needed to be made into an official installation. The phone was removed from the tree and set up with a signage board and plaque, which reads in part: "This phone is for everyone who has ever lost a loved one. ... It is a phone for memories and saying the goodbyes you never got to say."

Included among the regular visitors to the Olympia wind phone: the Sylvester family, which includes mom Erin, dad Andre, and three siblings. "I need the phone. I need an outlet," Erin Sylvester tells Reuters, though she admits that not hearing her daughter's voice on the other end can be "gut-wrenching." Joelle's brothers and sister, meanwhile, "take turns speaking into the handset" and "telling her how much they love and miss her." Since Dembeck's initial installation, he says dozens of wind phones have emerged across the United States. A site that tracks wind phone locations globally shows they're also sprinkled around Australia, New Zealand, and parts of Europe. Dembeck tells Reuters the wind phone is the greatest thing he's ever accomplished. "It's been really humbling," he says. (Watch as he creates a handmade version of his original display.)