All good information. Thank you for replying. That xlink might be the way I go down the road. Ended up with plugging it in to the back of a modem that I picked up at our cable store (Cox).
I actually was able to hear it ring! Sadly, I couldn't hear anything. No dial tone, voice... etc. Fiddling around with the different jacks ( I'm not sure what the correct term is. ), found the one where the handset goes into the phone to be the problem. I was able to hear after moving it a little. It's broken and lose.
I'll be learning how to replace that and where to get replacement parts.