{"id":387749,"date":"2026-07-06T10:30:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-06T10:30:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/387749\/"},"modified":"2026-07-06T10:30:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-06T10:30:10","slug":"when-grief-needs-a-voice-californians-turn-to-wind-phones","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/387749\/","title":{"rendered":"When grief needs a voice, Californians turn to ‘wind phones’"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

It was a hot and dry summer night in 2019 when the Campbell family drove from Los Angeles to their new desert vacation home in Joshua Tree.<\/p>\n

As they crested a hill on Highway 62, a drunk driver crashed into their car.<\/p>\n

Ruby, 17, and Hart, 14, were killed.<\/p>\n

To channel their grief, their parents \u2014 like thousands of people across the globe \u2014 created a \u201cwind phone.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"An <\/p>\n

Sitting on a patch of desert sand, the wind phone created by Colin Campbell and Gail Lerner consists of a wooden box sitting atop a cabinet with a chair nearby. Inside the box is an old rotary telephone. There are no wires. But those who want to can pick up the receiver to say out loud the emotions they\u2019ve bottled inside \u2014 a chance to reflect, reminisce and, in a way, connect.<\/p>\n

The first wind phone was created in 2010 by Japanese garden designer Itaru Sasaki after the loss of his cousin to cancer and then later was dedicated to lives lost in the 2011 tsunami. <\/p>\n

\u201cBecause my thoughts could not be relayed over a regular phone line, I wanted them to be carried on the wind.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2014 Itaru Sasaki<\/p>\n

\"A <\/p>\n

In the San Jacinto Mountains, another wind phone is nestled inside an old wooden toolbox attached to a tall pine tree in the community of Idyllwild.<\/p>\n

Vietnam veteran Millard Elston, twice widowed, created the phone and the homemade bench where it sits. In the early evening, just before dusk, the sun peeks through the trees and warms the bench.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a feeling of serene quietness and comfort and not feeling pressure or vulnerable,\u201d Elston said. \u201cIt\u2019s just a way of expressing your feelings, when you have nowhere else to go or you just want a quiet time and let the wind take it.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the San Gabriel Mountains, a blue wind phone stands on a foggy forest ridge near a roadside turnout in Wrightwood. A weathered notebook contains messages from those who have stopped by. On the cover of the notebook is an invitation: \u201cWrite the date and where you are from and about your loved one if you wish.\u201d<\/p>\n

This wind phone is dedicated to Robert Byrne, 28, whose 1995 disappearance is still unsolved.<\/p>\n

His sister, Laurie Kathleen Byrne, created the phone. She believes he was abducted and murdered.<\/p>\n

To the west in Duarte, an old tan rotary phone with a very long cord hangs on a tree in a garden. This wind phone is on the grounds of the City of Hope, one of the country\u2019s leading cancer centers.<\/p>\n

Breast cancer survivor Nancy Clifton-Hawkins, who was treated at the City of Hope, bought the phone on EBay for $50. It\u2019s the exact model she had in her childhood home in Long Beach.<\/p>\n

The first time she used the phone was to speak to her mother, who died of pancreatic cancer. She recently talked to a City of Hope employee who \u201chad tears in her eyes when she told me about calling her mom.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is something so therapeutic in physically dialing the number,\u201d Clifton-Hawkins said. \u201cWhile you won\u2019t hear a dial tone, you will always be connected.\u201d<\/p>\n

Colin Campbell recalls feeling that same connection. \u201cI first encountered a wind phone at St. Jude\u2019s Days of Remembrance and I used their wind phone to call my kids, Ruby and Hart,\u201d he said. \u201cIt felt so intimate and the words came so easily. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt brought me some solace, and I wanted to share that feeling with other mourners. So my wife and I built our wind phone in Joshua Tree, in honor of our kids.\u201d <\/p>\n

\"An <\/p>\n

In nearby Altadena, another wind phone sits in a wooden framed telephone booth with vertical glass windows at the end of a brick walkway.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy original plan was to build it in dedication to my father, who was dying of cancer. After the Eaton fire, it became a project for everyone,\u201d said Seamus Bozeman, a reporting fellow at the Los Angeles Times, who lost his home in the blaze.<\/p>\n

The wind phone sits behind the Healing Arts Center in a quiet garden area. \u201cIt\u2019s meant to be for you and you only to say what you mean into the wind,\u201d Bozeman said.<\/p>\n

Next to the black rotary phone, which used to belong to Bozeman\u2019s mother, a pink rock appeared one day with the words, \u201cYou are Beautiful.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Hikers <\/p>\n

Since most wind phones are in public spaces, they can be subject to vandalism. Such is the case of a phone dedicated to Jacqueline Player, 26, who died by suicide. Player\u2019s cousin created the wind phone for \u201cJax\u201d and placed it next to a walking trail at Mt. Rubidoux in Riverside.<\/p>\n

But what was once a small memorial is now just the base of an old rotary phone without the handset.<\/p>\n

Earlier this year, the phone erected for Ruby and Hart Campbell was moved to a more public location. It can now be found at the Joshua Tree Retreat Center, where more people can see it and send a message in the wind.<\/p>\n

\"A <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It was a hot and dry summer night in 2019 when the Campbell family drove from Los Angeles…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":387750,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[4900,1409,30472,40793,75385,18104,92695,5178,156335,16057,48,52,51,47,50,49,63,156336,156333,156334,152937],"class_list":["post-387749","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-cancer","tag-city","tag-comfort","tag-cousin","tag-feeling","tag-grief","tag-hart","tag-hope","tag-jacqueline-player","tag-joshua-tree","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-los-angeles-times","tag-notebook","tag-ruby","tag-seamus-bozeman","tag-wind-phone"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387749","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=387749"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387749\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/387750"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=387749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=387749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=387749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}