SALON

Thursday, Jul 26, 2012 9:45 PM UTC

Idaho woman’s wedding ring found 4 years later

By

Topics: From the Wires,

When she lost her diamond wedding ring four years ago, Necia Rasmussen held out hope for several months before finally buying a replacement. But she never stopped missing the one that got away.

Earlier this week, she nearly fell over from joy when she was reunited with the platinum Princess cut diamond ring that washed up on an Idaho lake shore and was found by a kayaker four years after it went missing.

Rasmussen, 34, said she started crying when she claimed the ring after describing it in great detail and providing a photograph.

“I mean, what are the chances?” Rasmussen told The Associated Press on Thursday.

Rasmussen was at Rigby Lake near Idaho Falls four years ago when she took the ring off so she could rub sunscreen on her children. She placed the ring inside a chair’s cup holder for safe keeping and thinks that it later fell out later when she was folding up the chair.

The loss was particularly upsetting because Rasmussen had recently learned that her husband, Heber, an Army reservist, was going to be deployed to Iraq. He had picked out the ring and it was platinum, just like his mother’s wedding ring.

His mother also lost her wedding ring and it was found about three decades later, Rasmussen said.

“Thirty years later, his dad found it in the garden,” she said.

In her case, she found herself reluctant to replace the ring that went missing at Rigby Lake, even with her husband’s encouragement.

“I was having a hard time getting a new one,” she said. “I just wanted my old one back.”

The ring remained missing until Monday, when Emily Geisler spotted it while kayaking.

The story was first reported in the Rexburg Standard Journal. Geisler told the newspaper she hadn’t been kayaking in a while and was practicing getting in and out of the watercraft on the shore when the ring caught her eye.

Geisler announced her finding at a meeting of the Rigby Rotary Club late Tuesday, after the group had finished its business. The announcement caught the attention of Rasmussen’s brother-in-law, Glenn Walker, a fellow Rotary Club member.

“He happened to remember me and my sister talking about my ring missing a year ago,” Rasmussen said.

Walker contacted his wife, who then contacted Rasmussen. He then approached Geisler, who remained skeptical until Walker started to describe the ring in specific detail, with Rasmussen on the other end of the phone telling him what her ring looked like.

Rasmussen then joined Walker at the restaurant where the Rotary Club was meeting. She provided a photograph of her ring, which was identical to the one in Geisler’s possession. The ring was in good condition and just needed a cleaning. It fit Rasmussen perfectly.

“I totally believe in miracles,” she said. “I had prayed about it, but I thought maybe somebody found it who needed it more than me.”

More Jessie L. Bonner.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 0 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations