Ring Found at Gilbert Willis Park Commerce MI- Owner Located – Wedding Ring Returned

It was looking like spring the first week of May here in Lower Michigan so I went out to practice with a new metal detector at Gilbert Willis Park in Wixom.  It is a beautiful, large park and I often find coins there.  Like most parks it can yield a fair amount of junk.  I had invested the whole afternoon retrieving a mixture of junk and coins and was walking to my car when I had a good hit that I thought might be a quarter.  It turned out to be several items, first a penny and a dime in the hole, and then a diamond ring in the clump.

Sentimentally, this ring might just be the most valuable thing I have ever found.   It bore the design of half a heart with a diamond, it had an inscription and a date that indicated the ring owner had been married only a year and a half ago. The inscription “No Matter What” instantly fired my determination to find the owner.  I was enjoying the thought of returning the ring even before I had the hole filled.

I ran into a lot of dead ends on this one until I enlisted the help of a local realtor, Liz Stevenson, and the Neighborhood Exchange newsletter which she has published monthly for at least 20 years.  Everyone reads the free ads on the back of the newsletter.  I placed an ad in the July issue.   Sherry called me the day the newsletter was delivered to tell me about her husband Shoane’s lost ring.  I knew it was his ring when she told me of the half of a heart design that matched her ring; but I made her give me the inscription so I could be sure.

Shoane was playing baseball in the park and had removed the ring and pocketed it for safety. Sadly, he lost it when he went to the car after the game.  It was a win for the team; but losing the ring ruined the weekend.   After an exhaustive search, Shoane had just about given up hope he would ever see his ring again.   The ring lay buried in the park until the following spring.

It turns out that Shoane’s office was just down the street from the park.   I was able to drop the ring off and ring and owner were reunited.