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Metal detecting club finds wedding ring Bazetta man lost
By Ed Runyan
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. He had triple heart-bypass surgery in January and started passing out after he returned home, so doctors implanted a pacemaker.
He lost 30 pounds, which caused the ring Mary gave him to fit a bit loosely.
“I knew it was loose, and should have taken it off but I didn’t,” Harper said.
When he realized it was gone, he looked everywhere. “I looked in the house so much and couldn’t find it,” he said.
Recently, Harper was featured in an article about his gardening. The article mentioned the lost ring.
That prompted a former Harper co-worker to contact Marsh, and Marsh arranged a search.
Marsh said finding someone’s missing jewelry or other meaningful item is satisfying for club members.
“That’s the part of the hobby we enjoy – finding things for people,” Marsh said, noting that Harper’s reaction after getting it back was priceless.
“He would talk to us a little while after we found it and look at the ring to make sure it was still there,” Marsh said.
Harper said the ring is in safekeeping for now, but he has gained some of the weight back and thinks it will be back on his hand again one day.
“If it fits, I’ll wear it again,” he said.
“[Mary and I] would have been married 65 years last Dec. 30th,” he said. “We had a good 64 years of life together, and the ring means a lot to me.”