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Woman’s lost ring is found 47 years later in another country

A US woman who lost her ring in the 1970s has shared the incredible story of how it was returned to her almost 50 years later - but she can’t explain how it ended up on the other side of the world.

Debra McKenna’s high school sweetheart, Shawn, asked her out on Valentine’s Day 1973 and gave her his class ring before going away to college.

Shortly after he left, Debra misplaced the ring after taking it off to wash her hands in a public restroom in Portland, Maine.

She never saw it again, according to the Bangor Daily News.

A stock image of a class ring. Source: Getty
A stock image of a class ring. Source: Getty

Debra and Shawn went on to marry when she was 21. The couple stayed together for 40 years until Shawn died in 2017 from cancer.

“I feel very lucky. I count my blessings every day. He was such a giving person, a deeply good person,” Ms McKenna told the Bangor Daily News.

Unbelievably, in January, Marko Saarinen found Debra’s missing ring in a small town in Finland.

Debra, who is now 67, had forgotten about the piece of jewellery until she was contacted by the Morse High School Alumni Association. Mr Saarinen wanted to return the ring to its owner.

Debra said she has no idea how it ended up on the other side of the world, however, Shawn did spend some time working in Finland in the late 90s, some 20 years after the ring was lost.

Adding the the peculiar circumstances, Mr Saarinen built ships for a living and “Shipbuilders” is engraved into the side of the ring after the high school’s mascot.

Thee ring was found in Kaarina, Finland (pictured), 40 years after it was lost in Portland. Source: Getty
Thee ring was found in Kaarina, Finland (pictured), 40 years after it was lost in Portland. Source: Getty

“He’s telling me to get my act together. To get going with the rest of my life,” Ms McKenna told the Bangor Daily News, admitting in the two years since her husband died she had been feeling lost.

She was touched someone on another continent would go to such lengths to return an old ring she thought was lost forever.

“There are good people in the world, and we need more of them,” she said of Mr Saarinen.

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