A White Rock senior is crossing her fingers that someone in the community has an eye for lost jewelry, after discovering last week that her wedding and engagement rings had slipped off her finger unnoticed.
Audrey De Fehr said she realized the loss on Oct. 7, just after leaving the Dollar Tree store near 18 Avenue and 152 Street.
“My hands were cold. They slipped off,” she said of the 14-karat, two-tone rings. “I’m just sick about this whole thing.”
The dollar-store stop came after a visit to the Canada Post office in the Semiahmoo Shopping Centre location of Shoppers Drug Mart – a visit De Fehr says was precipitated solely by the discovery that a piece of mail her husband had picked up two days prior had been tampered with.
“If (it) hadn’t been compromised, I wouldn’t have left the house,” she said.
The mail, which had been mailed from Montana containing a birthday card and two cheques, “had nothing in it” when it arrived, De Fehr said. On closer inspection, she discovered that one side of the white envelope had been sliced open.
As disturbing as the mail-loss is – De Fehr said Canada Post has opened an investigation – it’s the lost rings that are particularly concerning for the senior.
The wedding ring – a gold band with four diamonds – had been a gift to mark her and her husband’s silver anniversary; the ‘old-style’ engagement ring, with a diamond in the middle surrounded by diamonds, is circa 1956.
De Fehr, 80, is sure she had the rings on – as well as her original wedding band – when she left home, and is quite certain she would have noticed if they weren’t on her finger at the post office. The original wedding band was “hanging” on her knuckle when she noticed the other two were missing, she said.
De Fehr said she searched her car, and returned to both the dollar store and the post office to look for her rings, all to no avail. The loss was also reported to the South Surrey RCMP detachment.
She noted that the rings were lost on a day that should have about celebrating – her husband Bert’s birthday. Her own birthday was the day prior, she added.
“It was not a happy birthday,” she said.
Anyone who finds the rings may drop them off at the South Surrey RCMP detachment, at 1815 152 St. Reference file #19-155921.
tholmes@peacearchnews.com
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