A wedding ring is one of the most precious ornaments for every married man and woman, and finding it missing for even a moment can make you feel unsettled.
93-year-old, James Crowley is feeling very grateful after a stranger helped him find the wedding ring he lost in a pile of leaves.
The Rhode Island native was clearing leaves from his yard when he found the wedding band he’d been wearing for 71 years was gone. “First time in 71 years that ring was off my finger,” Crowley said. “I really missed it.”
Crowley built the house as a wedding gift for his late wife Mary when they got married. “It must have slipped off when I took off my gloves,” said Crowley, it was already dark outside and he was alone there so he immediately called his daughter Deidre Miguel.
Miguel could tell her dad was very upset and she wanted to help find the missing ring. “My mother passed away six years ago,” said Miguel, “and that made it even harder. If she was still around, she would just say ‘Don’t worry about it!’ but that ring is their bond right now.”
Miguel said since she grew up near the beach, she knew that people had metal detectors in Westerly, and so she posted on Westerly’s Facebook group asking if someone with a metal detector could help look for her father’s wedding band. Ryan Ledbetter responded immediately. “I have the Cadillac of metal detectors,” he said.
Ledbetter paid a visit to Crowley’s house the next morning and said that he saw the post in the time since he was about to put the metal detector away for the season. Crowley and Ledbetter looked together, going over the parts of the yard Crowley had worked on the day before for 30 to 40 minutes without any luck. He spent another 10 minutes searching and found the wedding band. Now Miguel says they are planning to resize the ring to better fit her dad’s finger.
