Massachusetts students build wind phone that connects grieving family with lost loved ones
By Matt Reed
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SOMERSET, Massachusetts (WCVB) — In a corner of Somerset, Massachusetts, there is a sound that seems out of place. A rotary phone in a small wooden structure, allowing the living to connect with those not on the other line, but on the other side.
The concept of the wind phone started 15 years ago in Japan. A disconnected phone in a secluded area, where the person grieving can perform the ritual they did countless times when their loved one was still alive: pick up the phone and call them.
“I know you’re watching over us,” said Christina McGarry.
“I can’t really complain right now, except you know that I wish you were here,” added Drew McGarry.
The McGarrys’ call is to Drew McGarry’s older sister, Kyla, who died of cancer back in 2020.
“She broke the freshman hurdle record two weeks before she was diagnosed,” said Kyla’s mother, Christina McGarry. “It was Stage 4, so we knew it was bleak.”
The Blue Raider wind phone, located within the Elm Street Acres in Somerset, was the brainchild of Merilee Bowers, Somerset Berkley Regional High School’s arts teacher. Bowers taught both Kyla and Drew McGarry.
“Something just awakened in me, and I thought we need to bring one to our community,” said Bowers.
Bowers brought the idea to her students two years ago, who got to work designing the Blue Raider wind phone, which was ultimately built by Sarah Augusto and her team at the Lilac Thief.
“We wanted this structure to kind of just really blend in,” said Augusto. “You almost don’t notice it.”
One of the students who helped design the wind phone, Anya Kanalski, lost her father, Jack, when she was just 13 years old. Kanalski was skeptical when Bowers first told her class about the project but is now a believer.
“It’s kind of, like, beautiful to be able to see, like, grieving in a different way,” said Kanalski. “You think of it being sad, crying, but it doesn’t always have to be like that.”
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