It’s been decades since Ofelia Kirker lost her wedding rings, but she’ll be wearing the treasured jewellery for her 64th wedding anniversary.
“It feels like we’re getting married again,” said her 83-year-old husband Robert Kirker.
It’s “unbelievable to be wearing them again”, said Ofelia, 82. “They had been gone for so long. It’s wonderful to have them back.”
She believes the rings tumbled out of her pocket in the 1960s while she was living in the Grant County village of Santa Clara, reports the Las Cruces Sun-News.
They were unearthed in a yard there years ago and have finally made their way back to her thanks to an observant yard worker, one woman’s sharp memory and her daughter’s persistence.
Ofelia had a habit of taking the matching white gold and diamond rings off and wrapping them in tissues while she cooked, placing the tissues in her pocket. “I said be more careful with your rings or you’ll lose them,” said her husband, Robert.
And then she lost them. She remembered having them in her pocket at church and suspected they had fallen near the home of Romana Gutierrez, where the couple always parked before celebrating Sunday Mass.
In a panic, Ofelia went to Gutierrez’s house and began searching in the dirt.
“Mrs Gutierrez came up to her and said, ‘What are you doing, Mrs Kirker?'” Robert Kirker. “Ofelia told her that she lost her wedding rings and Mrs Gutierrez said, ‘Well, good luck. I hope you find them’.” She never did and she never replaced the rings.
Gutierrez’s daughter, Edna Salas, said the rings were unearthed years later when Gutierrez hired someone to clean her yard.
By that time, the Kirkers had left Santa Clara. Gutierrez didn’t know how to reach them, said Salas, so she put the jewellery in a small blue box. Salas found that box in April.
