Poplar Bluff woman prefers living-room phone booth

POPLAR BLUFF, Mo. -- Enclosed phone booths are a thing of the past, but a bright red one can be found in Hannah Reasons' living room.

Reasons has been fascinated with phone booths since childhood.

"When I was 4 or 5 years old, I watched the 'Doctor Who' show on TV with a friend," she said.

In the long-running British science fiction series, the Doctor traveled in a time machine that was disguised as a police box, a blue version of a phone booth that was used by British police until the 1960s, when the show began.

"I thought it was really cool," Reasons said of the police box. She watched the show for two years.

Her red phone booth is a reproduction of a British K-6 Jubilee, which was first made in 1936 in England to honor the king. The originals were made of iron and weighed 1,500 pounds, but hers is of wood and beveled glass.

"My dad bought it for me last year. Dad always knew I wanted one," Reasons said. "It was something I had to have."

The booth did not come with a phone, but her husband, Joshua, found a push-button phone that looked like a rotary-dial version in Cape Girardeau. The phone also looks like it's coin-operated.

"People ask if they can make a call from inside the phone booth," Reasons said. "I tell them to put a quarter in it, but it doesn't need any money."

She said she and her husband enjoy taking calls from the booth.

"It is really convenient, and we can shut out the noise," she said.

But there's another perk to having the phone booth.

"It is fun to see the look on people's faces who see it for the first time," Reasons said. "I like pieces that make people say, 'Wow.'"