Troy Hinke couldn’t believe his eyes.
He had been walking his dog around the lake at Carsonia Park on a Tuesday evening in August when he stopped to let Ezo do his business. It was a typical route for Hinke and Ezo, who live only a few blocks from the park.
Hinke’s attention was split between his pup and the cellphone in his hand.
But, suddenly, his focus shifted.
He caught the glimpse of something jutting out of a small pile of soil at his feet. He bent down, reached out his hand and plucked a gold men’s wedding band from the dirt.
“I was waiting for Ezo to go to the bathroom when I happened to look down at the ground and saw this ring sticking out,” he said. “I couldn’t believe it at first. It was buried in the roots so I knew it must have been there for a long time.”
Hinke was amazed and confused by his discovery. How did it get there? How long was it there? Who did it belong to?
He set his sights on figuring out those answers.
Paying it forward
The mission was an important and personal one to Hinke. That’s because he had a similar experience last year when he lost his wallet on a walk in the neighborhood.
It came at a particularly bad time for him because he was about to leave on a work trip. Fearing that the wallet would never be found, he was shocked when he returned home and discovered it waiting for him in his mailbox.
“It was lucky that my wallet ended up in the right hands,” he said. “So I guess, in a way, I thought this is my chance to pay back some of that good karma that had come my way.”
Fortunately, the ring contained a big clue that would help him on his quest: an inscription on the inside of the band that read “Zoe and Jamie. All My Life. 9/30/89.”
Hinke’s first move was to post about his discovery on a Facebook page dedicated to the Mount Penn, Antietam and Lower Alsace neighborhoods. He said he had no expectation that he would be able to locate the owner that way, but thought it was worth a try.
“Since the people were married in 1989, I didn’t even know if they would still be married,” he said with a chuckle. “But my first thought was that this ring is a symbol of love and must be returned.”
The next day he decided to try another route and visited the Mount Penn Municipal Building, thinking someone there might recognize the names. Once he was there he was directed to Christeena Hauck, the office manager at the Mount Penn Borough Municipal Authority.
“She took one look at the names and knew right away who it belonged to,” he said.
Couple identified
It turned out the names etched into the ring were those of longtime Mount Penn residents Jamie and Zoe Yousaitis, who live just steps from the park. The ring likely belonged to Jamie Yousaitis.
Hinke left his number at the office with Hauck hoping she would be able to get in contact with Yousaitis and pass along his number.
Less than two hours later, Yousaitis called Hinke.
Yousaitis asked Hinke to meet him where he had found the ring, still unable to process that his ring had finally surfaced. That’s because it had been missing for a decade.
Yousaitis said he believes he was walking the family dog in Carsonia Park about 10 years ago when the ring slipped off his finger.
The night he discovered that the ring was no longer on his finger he had been raking leaves and went for a walk. So, in the days that followed he retraced his steps with a metal detector he had bought for his son, but he came up empty-handed.
“I was frantic for those first few days,” he said. “I decided not to tell my wife right away, thinking that I would probably find it. But eventually I gave up on it and I had to tell my wife. Zoe was, surprisingly, very understanding.
“I mean, honestly, I was heartsick about it.”
Yousaitis said about five years ago she replaced the band with a new one.
“I guess I almost forgot about it until I got the message from Christeena at the borough telling me that someone had finally found it,” he said. “Who would have figured that would ever happen?”
As the two men stood on the spot where Hinke had found the long lost ring, they started putting the pieces of the puzzle together.
Looking around, they noticed there were about half a dozen holes dotting the field where they were standing. At first Hinke thought they may have been made by a horse or deer roaming the park, but on closer examination he realized that they were deeper than the tracks left by animals.
How was it unearthed?
Yousaitis took a look at the holes and theorized that someone with a metal detector had probably dug the holes. He said that over the years he has seen people hunting for treasures and is pretty sure this is what happened.
But, still, he was amazed that the ring somehow went undiscovered by the people who had uncovered the ground.
Hinke said he was thrilled to be able to return the ring to its rightful owner, and that the couple are still happily married.
“You can tell he’s a really gentle and kind soul,” he said of Yousaitis. “So it made me feel good that I was able to return something that obviously meant so much.”
And Yousaitis said he was incredibly thankful that Hinke put so much effort into locating the owner of his chance discovery. He tried to give Hinke a reward for finding and returning the ring, but he refused to take anything.
“What a great guy,” Yousaitis said. “I’m sure there are a lot of people who could have found it over the years that would not have taken the time to find out who it belonged to. But Troy is just a nice guy, and I’m really glad that I met him.”
Yousaitis said that when he returned home from retrieving the ring from Hinke he wanted to surprise his wife. So he placed the ring on a gold chain, put it in a gift bag and went downstairs to deliver the package.
“She was shocked,” he said of Zoe’s reaction.
Yousaitis said he believes his wife’s somewhat unique name, Zoe, was a big clue. And “All My Life” is a reference to a song by the band America, which is the couple’s wedding song.
“I’ll tell you what, I would recommend to anyone getting married to engrave their names on the rings,” he said with a chuckle.
Source: Berkshire mont
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