Ring returned to owner after being lost on Cape Cod 47 years ago

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Ring returned to owner after being lost on Cape Cod 47 years ago

capecodtimes.com/news/20170828/ring-returned-to-owner-after-being-lost-on-cape-cod-47-years-ago

In 1970, Patrick O'Hagan lost the class ring that marked his graduation a year prior from Manhattan College.

DENNIS PORT James "Jim" Wirth was in ankle-deep water at low tide on a Dennis Port beach when he found something Patrick O'Hagan thought was gone forever.

In 1970, O'Hagan lost the class ring that marked his graduation a year prior from Manhattan College. The ring was a gift from Christine Kehl O'Hagan, who was now his wife â€" the couple had traveled from New York to Dennis Port for their honeymoon.

O'Hagan was swimming in the surf, which was particularly rough, while his wife basked in the sun on the beach.

"He jumped out of the waves and he put his hand up and said, 'I lost my ring,'" Kehl O'Hagan said.

At the end of July, Wirth found it.

Earlier this month, O'Hagan and his ring were reunited after it had spent nearly five decades in the sands of Cape Cod.

Driven by the thrill of the hunt, Wirth has found a few rings in his decades using a metal detector to search the sands for what other people had left behind. And as was the case with O'Hagan's, reuniting bands with their long-lost owners often requires Wirth to turn his digging attention from the beach to books, alumni records and phone directories.

"This ring has been lost for 47 years and we've hit that particular beach (with metal detectors) many, many times over the years," he said. "That's what makes it such a great hobby â€" you never know what a particular day is going to bring."

This case was an unusual one because O'Hagan's full name was inscribed in the ring, as was an "E" indicating he had studied engineering. With those facts, O'Hagan, who lives in California and spends his summers in South Yarmouth, simply turned to Google.