Sunday, December 30, 2007

Positively Honest

This story reminds me of something similar that happened when we moved 5 years ago into our townhouse.

---------------------------------

Woman loses ring in fudge, gets it back Sat Dec 29, 8:14 PM ET



LAFAYETTE, Ind. - A woman whose diamond ring vanished while she was making fudge for a bake sale was despondent after scouring her home and finding no sign of it.



But Linda Vancel recently got a sweet surprise: A relative of the woman who bought the fudge found the ring when he bit into a piece of the candy.

"It's a very sentimental ring," Vancel said of the white gold ring her mother, who died 15 years ago, wore for 50 years before passing it on.

Linda Rhoades bought the fudge during a bake sale in West Lafayette. She took some of it to her sister-in-law's father, Charles "Red" Matson, in hopes of cheering him up after recent health problems.

When Matson snacked on a piece of the fudge, he bit into something hard — the ring.

Rhoades said Matson called her and said, "Well, Linda, it's got chocolate all over it, but it doesn't look adjustable. It's got a stone that's really shiny."

Vancel said she had scoured her home, even dumping the trash can on the kitchen floor to sort through the rubbish for the ring. Finally she thought to track down Rhoades and sent her a long-shot e-mail, which Rhoades returned as soon as she got back from vacation.

"It renews your faith in people," Vancel said. "Sometimes there's so much negative in the world, to hear a story like this is reassuring."
-------

When we moved into our townhouse we did some extensive remodeling and the counter tops and cabinets in the kitchen were covered with a lot of fine sheet rock dust. We hired some cleaning ladies to come in and help clean up the mess through out. One of the ladies is the wife of a moving company employee and she runs a small cleaning company. They all immigrated from South America as few years back. The moving company, "Truck And I," has achieved good success with hard work and perseverance. Except for Hazel, the boss and owner of the small cleaning company, the other two ladies were strangers to us.

As they worked hard at wiping out the insides of the cabinets, one of them, called me to come into the kitchen. She held out her hand and showed me a ladies ring, gold and set with some lovely stones. I could tell at once it was valuable. I told her "This is not my ring.The previous owner must have accidently left her ring in the cabinet."

I thanked her and praised her for her honesty and proceeded to call Mrs T, from whom we purchased the house.

Turns out it WAS her ring and she had not missed it in the hustle and bustle of their moving. She has three small children and was distracted by all the packing as they were planning to move to Canada where her husband was opening a branch of an Atlanta company

Mrs T came by immediately and retrieved her ring. She said it had great sentimental value. It was her engagement ring.

I have always thought this was a lovely story. Mrs T asked for Hazel's phone number so she could call and send a reward to her honest employee.

Isn't this an inspirational story. Do you have any similar positive experiences you can remember?

"It renews your faith in people," Vancel said. "Sometimes there's so much negative in the world, to hear a story like this is reassuring."

5 comments:

kenju said...

I don't have a similar story, but I have heard of some others in the past, and they are always heartwarming and they reaffirm your faith in mankind.

Happy New Year!

joared said...

Happy New Year to you for 2008!

Anonymous said...

I had an experience like this when I had my mother-in-law's house cleaned by cleaning ladies I didn't know, after my mother-in-law moved to a retirement home. One of the cleaning ladies found a yellow-stoned ring, which turned out to be a yellow topaz, worth about $1600. I was fortunate enough to be able to reward her with one of my mother-in-law's bureaus that she'd left behind, not wanting it anymore. Yes, it's wonderful to hear a story like this. Thank you for spreading it. ML of Full Fath. Five

Joy Des Jardins said...

It really does warm your heart to hear of these stories. I'd like to believe there are many more honest people out there than we know. As a matter of fact...I know there are. Happy New Year Janet.

Maya's Granny said...

I dropped my wallet with all of my id and credit cards and $150 in it in a parking lot a few years ago. I went back to the lot as soon as I missed it, but it was gone. I contacted mall security; they hadn't seen it.
When I got home, there was a message on my answering machine. Someone had found the wallet and as soon as I called them, they brought it to me.