Tuesday, August 23, 2016
BAZETTA
When Mike Marsh of the Tri-County Metal Detecting Club arrived at Charles Harper’s 5-acre homestead on Johnson-Plank Road last week to find Harper’s missing wedding ring, he realized it would be challenging.
“We didn’t think we were going to be able to find it with all the gardens and grounds and shrubbery,” Marsh said.
Six club members spent two hours searching the areas that looked to be the most probable – areas Harper traveled the most while maintaining his numerous gardens, apple trees, and property.
After a break, member Tom Morris of Mineral Ridge decided to check Harper’s rhubarb patch and headed in that direction.
Part way there, he found it.
“He had looked at the rhubarb [patch] and didn’t find it,” Harper recalls. “I didn’t think I would ever find it.”
But when Morris brought it to him, “I was about to cry,” Harper said. “I felt so happy. I just couldn’t believe it.
“My wife had bought it for me for our 50th anniversary, and I was so happy to find it,” he said.
“It was just pressed down in the ground, like he had run over it once with a lawn mower,” Marsh said.
The past year has been difficult for Harper.
His wife of 64 years, Mary, died June 23, 2015. Then Charles had some health problems.
Read more of his story and how the club came to help in Wednesday's Vindicator or on Vindy.com.