Allison Stillwell Young, MS, BSN, RN is the wife of Tyler, mother of Soren and Rune, and pet mom to three dogs and five cats. The Youngs live in East Nashville, Tennessee, United States. Employed by Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center’s Clinical Trials Office since 2019, she has been a gastrointestinal cancer research nurse since 2010.

Allison is a master’s graduate in thanatology from Marian University of Fond du Lac, and this website was part of her capstone project. In addition to writing the information on this website, she researches topics such as healthcare provider bereavement, horticulture therapy, and atheistic bereavement. She has presented on these topics at the Oncology Nursing Society Congress (2022) and the Sigma Theta Tau Congress (2022 and 2023), and she has also been published in Vanderbilt’s peer-reviewed journal, The Empowered Nurse. Additionally, she has presented on the effects of patient deaths on her nursing practice at the Oncology Nursing Congress (2022) and had her stories about patients published in both a book by the Oncology Nursing Society and a blog entry.

Allison and her husband are the stewards of the East Nashville Wind Telephone which was built by Allison and her father, Tom Stillwell.

It all started with a wind telephone. In 2010, Sasaki Itaru created the first wind telephone, and eight years later, Allison became obsessed. She started a program in thanatology - the study of death, dying, and bereavement - and ended up building her own telephone dedicated to her paternal grandparents. After seeing how well grievers took to the phone, she decided to write her capstone on the use of wind telephones, continuing bonds with the dead, alternative grieving, and the material culture of death.

This website is a repository of accessible information written at the same level as medical handouts. It includes information about building wind telephones with examples but is primarily for education on thanatological topics. The blog will be updated weekly and include guest writers, and the education sections will be updated with articles on specific topics based on the interests and needs of readers.

Wind telephones are disconnected phones - usually rotary phones - which people use to ‘call’ lost loved ones and have one-sided conversations.

‘When you hear the sound of the wind or birds’ singing, convey your feelings to your lost loved ones through the phone.’ - Sasaki Itaru, creator of the first wind telephone

Would you like to see if one is near you? Check out My Wind Phone. If there isn’t one nearby, consider making one yourself with the resources both here and at My Wind Phone!

Continuing bonds, the material culture of death, cultural death practices, shrines to the dead, wind telephones, and more. All posts are tagged so you can research the topics you would like. Each topic is also represented by an icon to make it easy to identify posts when scrolling.

Translations are always welcome! The website is simplistic to be more readable as well, so hopefully this will be more accessible. If you have any recommendations for accessibility, would like to be a guest writer for the blog, or would be willing to translate existing education sections or blog entries, please contact Allison!

The easiest way is to email enwindtelephone@gmail.com, but you can also message via Instagram (enwindtelephone) or Facebook (East Nashville Wind Telephone).

Thank you to my advisor, Dr Rebecca Reynolds, for her oversight of this project.

Thank you to my parents Tom and Deborah Stillwell, husband Tyler Young, and friend Lacey Hancock for their help and support throughout the process of earning this degree. Thank you to my friend Katie Kantar for her help digitizing the logos I drew!

Big thanks to Amy Dawson of My Wind Telephone for her ongoing support and love of the idea and use of wind telephones. Many thanks to the documentary crew of Death Differently for spreading the word about wind telephones through their short documentary on the East Nashville Wind Telephone.