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The voice is helpful, inquisitive and has been emitting its soft and sweet sound for 94 years. It belongs to Lucille Dyches, a church volunteer who has been answering the phone and opening the door at the church office four days a week for 20 years.
"I always loved working with people, and I still do," she said.
A voice on the phone
She has long been a familiar face to church members and a familiar voice to callers. Dyches moved to Beaufort from Barnwell County in 1944 when her husband, John, relocated as part of his job with the S.C. Highway Department.
After having four children -- Patricia, Gene, Harriet Elaine and Janet -- Dyches decided it was time to put her own skills to use in the working world. In 1951 she started work as a switchboard operator for the United Telephone Co.
"People would call and want to talk to the lady who lives in the white house on the corner, and I would have to know who they were talking about," she said.
David Townsend, a fellow church member who has known Dyches since moving to Beaufort in the mid-1950s, attests to her abilities as a knowledgeable operator.
"I called one day and asked to be connected to Dr. Jones, and a sweet little voice said 'I'm sorry honey, he's out of town.' "
However, a new day of telephone technology dawned when switchboard operators were replaced by the dial system in 1958.
Dyches was soon out of a job, though her usefulness was appreciated by others in the community.
"I came home one evening, and the phone was ringing off the hook," she said.
It was a local bank offering her an entry-level job. After she was promoted to supervisor of the bookkeepers in just six months, managers at United Telephone Co. came down to the bank to persuade her to come back to work with them.
Essentially erasing the six months that she was gone, she re-joined the phone company and continued working another 26 years. First serving in the accounting department upon her return, she retired in 1984 as the office supervisor.
She also was active in the patriotic organization Daughters of America.
In 1978, she was elected national conductor, then eight years later, she was promoted to national councilor -- the organization's leadership position. This led to speaking engagements to local clubs from South Carolina to California and a few places along the way. Her time as national councilor culminated in a National Convention of the Daughters of America in Hilton Head in 1988.
"I traveled with the group for 16 years," she said. "My car knew the way to the airport, and I didn't even have to drive it."
Surrounded by family
Dyches describes herself as someone whose "hands won't stay idle," and she initially volunteered her time after retirement at both the Baptist Church of Beaufort and the Beaufort Memorial Hospital Gift Shop.
After her husband died in 1997, she could no longer bear to go back to the hospital. She has since worked four days a week at the church.
In the time Dyches has volunteered at the church, she has served under threepastors, each of whom she describes as having different viewpoints and experiences.
"They have all been good to me though; I could not ask for better love and respect," she said.
The current pastor, Jim Wooten, called attention to Dyches during a church service last year around the time of her 93rd birthday and led the congregation in singing "Happy Birthday." Though appreciating the gesture, Dyches admits to some amount of modest embarrassment. "I don't like fanfare because I'm just me," she said.
Associate Pastor Eric Spivey, who has worked with Dyches for seven years, calls her "an inspiration for everyone who knows her," including those who work with her on a regular basis.
She is known around the church as much for her volunteer work as for the work she has done teaching both children and adult Sunday school classes and singing in the adult choir.
"All the adults at the church, as well as the children, became my extended family," she said. "I felt I had my telephone company home and my church home, and I didn't feel like they were just people, they are family."
This is in addition to her actual family, which now includes 10 grandchildren, 20 great-grandchildren and two great-great-grandchildren. She has refused to let age slow her down, adopting the goal to "keep on keeping on" during her time with the Daughters of America. She admits to having days when she might not have felt up to par but came to work anyway "because of love and wanting to help people."
The use of telephones still form a confluence with her past and her present, and she continues to serve the church she has called home since 1946.
"This is where my heart has always been," she said. "I will be here until I join my loved ones in the great beyond."
