Is this your ring? Woman looking to return 85-year-old ring to owner
Nicole Williams | CBC News | Posted: December 6, 2017 5:14 PM | Last Updated: December 6, 2017
'Somebody's grandmother or aunt ... was probably wearing this or had it on them'
A P.E.I. woman is looking to reunite an 85-year-old ring with its owner.
Ann-Louise DesRoches said she found the ring last month in the parking lot of the Sullivan building in Charlottetown.
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"I almost walked on it ... I didn't quite know what it was," she said.
It turned out to be a graduation ring from St. Joseph's School of Nursing from 1932.
The ring shows a cross in the middle, engraved with the date, with four blue triangles around the cross and the insignia of St. Joseph's School of Nursing around it.
Inscribed inside the band are the initials J.E.
"Other than that, there's no other markings on it that are helping me get it back to its home," DesRoches said.
Reached out to nursing schools
DesRoches has reached out to several St. Joseph's nursing schools and organizations, including ones in Ontario and New England, but they've told her that they don't use or recognize the insignia on the ring.
"This must mean something to somebody," she said. "I've had it long enough. It means something to me now so I really want to get it back to whoever had it longer than I have."
Based on her research, DesRoches said the ring likely would have originally belonged to a sister or a nun.
It's also possible the ring travelled a long distance to end up in P.E.I. In the 1930s, Canadian nurses were sought out in the U.S. because of their training and expertise, and would often travel south for work.
Value 'not just monetary'
"The value to it is not just monetary," DesRoches said. "Somebody's grandmother or aunt ... was probably wearing this or had it on them."
For now, she plans to keep it safe until she can return it to its rightful owner or find a new home where people can appreciate its value.
"I would be sick if it was my own ring that I had lost from a family member. So I'm quite positive whoever's missing this is probably thinking that they might not get it back."
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