FloridaWoman Digs Through Trash at Landfill to Find Lost Wedding Ring

Nearly a month after Ann DeVries got her wedding ring back, she still treats the band with extreme caution.

In January, Ann DeVries was doing the dishes when she set her ring on the counter. When she finished, she noticed some smudges on a glass door in her home. After cleaning it, she placed the dirty paper towels over top the ring without realizing it, and since it was trash day, Wednesday, she scooped the whole pile up and dumped it in the garbage.

Later, when she was eating a sandwich at the clubhouse in the Imperial Wilderness community where she lives, she realized she had forgotten to put her ring on. And when she got home, she realized she couldn’t find her ring.

The ring in question symbolized her relationship with her husband, Jack DeVries. She's 83, he's 78, and they’ve been married nearly 47 years, and the diamonds on the ring were from Ann’s mother. She had trouble sleeping in the few days she was without it.

David Phillips, a district manager for Waste Management, is responsible for overseeing the county’s landfill. While somebody throwing away something precious to them is not unheard of, Phillips said, it is infrequent – it happens maybe four-to-six times a year.

When somebody calls in with lost property, he said, the company immediately tries to identify where the trash might have ended up. If they catch the truck before it dumps at the landfill, that’s good news; they can dump the trash apart from the rest of the garbage so it can be searched.

“Once something is disposed of in the landfill, it is very difficult, if not impossible, to find it,” Phillips said.

The DeVries should consider themselves lucky, then: Catching it early meant they had the opportunity to search through the garbage for their treasure.

So after losing her ring on Wednesday, Jan. 15, Ann DeVries found herself at the county landfill on the following Monday with a number of friends and Waste Management staff.

“If you don’t have anything to do today, would you like to go through the trash?” Ann DeVries recalled saying when she asked her friends for help.

All it took was 56 minutes for Ann DeVries to be reunited with her ring, and habit had a lot to do with it.

Ann DeVries was able to narrow down her selection visually, looking for white bags with a black string. When the party looked through one particular bag, she noticed an empty waffle box she had flattened down — Jack DeVries is rather fond of them. At the bottom of the bag was her ring.

The DeVries largely credit those who helped them, particularly the Waste Management crew.

“It was such a great feeling to actually locate the ring,” Phillips said. “It put a smile on everybody’s face.”

“They went way beyond what they had to do,” she said. “There are good people.”

Now, when Ann DeVries takes her ring off, she knows where she put it: the same small dish in the bathroom.

Imagine being in your 80s and rummaging through garbage? She must have had some good friends.

My teenaged younger sister traveled with family to New Orleans to pick me up from a flight one winter many years ago. We went to a seafood place afterwards to eat and, as we were leaving, my sister realized her high school ring was missing.

The parking lot was made of loose sea shells so the whole family kicked around all the shells hoping one would turn over the ring. It could not be found. She was inconsolable.

A couple of years later, my mom took her car in for service and when the service writer asked if there was anything else she wanted, she mentioned to them that one of the seat belts in back had stopped working. When they cracked open the housing for the belt take-up, out popped my sister’s ring!

By then she was in college and had lost nearly all sentiment for the ring.

This reminds me of a story my Mom told me many years ago.

She and her best friend in the neighborhood were doing some early Christmas shopping. They were in a store in Framingham, MA called Filene's. It was a somewhat upscale (for the times) department store. Quite nice.

At one point they were trying on some Winter gloves but decided not to purchase any. After making it back home some hours later, Eileen, my Mom's friend gasped..."I lost my wedding ring!" My mother tried to console her and told Eileen, "You know...I'll bet it came off in one of the gloves you were trying on!"
"You're right!" exclaimed Eileen. "We HAVE to go back to Filene's and search that bin of Winter gloves! Let's go!"

Off they went to retrace their steps and then proceeded to inspect every pair out of hundreds in the large bin that held the gloves. After a couple of hours, they came up empty handed.

Eileen was inconsolable. Days turned into weeks and soon, Christmas came. She never told her husband Joe that she'd lost her wedding ring. She just couldn't.

As was the tradition among our families, we gathered at our house on Christmas Eve to celebrate, pray and exchange gifts. It was always a great evening and very festive. My Mom and Eileen were less than their usual selves at this year's celebration.

When it came time to exchange gifts, we all gathered around the tree with my Mom at the center. She wanted to play 'Santa Clause' and hand out the gifts. She would dole out the goodies and each person would open their gift and we all would watch. It made things last longer and was more fun that way.

She cam to a smallish box wrapped with a gold bow and handed it to Eileen. "Eileen, this one is from Joe."
Eileen smiled at Joe as best she could manage and opened her gift...a long box about 3/4" thick. She opened it and slowly with drew a pair of Winter gloves. She paused. She bowed her head at the remembrance of that horrid day in Filemne's and she wept. Joe was puzzled and my Mom moved to her side to comfort her.

Joe finally said, "Try them on honey. I think they'll fit you. I can exchange them if not." Eileen stopped, dried her eyes and put on the right glove. "They're very comfy. Thank you honey."
Joe said, put the other one on to make sure they both fit."

Eileen slowly slipped on the left glove and before she was quite done...she stopped. HEr eyes went as wide as saucers. Her moth agape. She withdrew her hand at light speed and pulled out...her wedding ring.

The tears flowed again in buckets and Joe sat there very confused as to what was happening. Long story short, my Mom told Joe the whole story and together they all figured that Joe had gone to Filene's the same day before heading home...within a short time after my Mom and Eileen left... and bought the EXACT pair of gloves that Eileen had lost her ring in. He'd had them gift wrapped at the counter and never knew the ring was within.

I was a young lad and didn't pay much attention to the goings on that night but my Mom had related the whole story to me and my brother and sister the next day on Christmas morning. I've never witnessed a miracle but my Mom sure did.

I once lost my wedding ring working in the springtime pulling some day lilies. The soil was cold, my hands numb, and my fingers shrunk slightly from the cold. Never felt the ring come off. Realized my ring was gone and went back looking for it. Never found the ring but found a few buffalo nickels and a boy scout pocket knife in fair condition. I like to think I left some treasure for someone in the future.

It happened to my Mother early one morning when she was milking the cow in the little stall next to the feedlot. She got it back a few years later from the feedlot. If I remember right it was found when my brother was collecting fertilizer, if you know what I mean.

Hint: The only thing that grows in a feedlot is the depth of manure and poke salad weed along the fence rows.

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