Chantel Brink

Chantel Brink

May 27, 2024

Woman Loses Engagement Ring In Garden Finds It 13 Years Later On A Carrot

Sure, we’ve seen people find things years later, sometimes in the weirdest places. Cleaning up a spare room or garage can yield treasures long forgotten. Jewelry, in particular, seems to be something that goes missing. People have found earrings under refrigerators, rings stuck in the tread under shoes, and the list goes on.

13 Years later, a carrot gave one woman quite a surprise!

84-year-old Mary Grams from Canada lost her diamond engagement ring 20 years ago when she was weeding her family farm in Alberta. She kept the loss secret from all but her son for over a decade. She thought the ring was lost forever and completely forgot about it, carrying on with her life.

Colleen Daley, Mary’s daughter-in-law, was harvesting carrots in the exact same spot that was worked for all those years and pulled up a rather knotted-looking carrot. It was then that she discovered her mother-in-law’s secret – a diamond ring. The carrot had grown right through the ring, enabling the two to be plucked right out of the soil together.

The lost engagement ring on a knotted carrot
Image Credit: BBC

Embarrassed to tell her husband, only her son knew about the lost engagement ring

Mary was too embarrassed to tell her husband what had happened all those years ago, so she bought a cheaper replacement hoping he wouldn’t notice. She carried on as if nothing had happened. Eventually, she even forgot about the incident that had happened all those years ago. “Maybe I did the wrong thing, but you get so worked up,” she said.

Read: ‘I Can’t Believe I Actually Found You!’: Birth Mom Reunites with Son after 33 Years of Separation

No one would have been the wiser if it wasn’t for Colleen pulling up a few carrots for dinner

Colleen Daley, who now lives on the farm where Mrs. Grams used to live, was harvesting vegetables for dinner when she spotted the ring while washing a lumpy carrot. Her husband knew it was the ring his mother had lost all those years ago. He immediately called her in shock and excitement.

Reflecting on the lost engagement ring and its discovery

Mary with her lost engagement ring
Image Credit: BBC

Mary said she wished that she had just told her husband all those years back about what had happened to her engagement ring, as he died eight years before they found the ring. He was a joker and probably would have found the entire situation funny. Now that it’s back home, she swears to be more careful, keeping it safe. “If I am going outside or anything I am going to put it in a safe space. That is what I should have done,” she said.

Not the first time a ring was found on a carrot

Surprisingly, this is not the first time a diamond ring was discovered on a carrot. A Swedish woman found her missing wedding ring 16 years after she had lost it! Lena Paahlsson lost hope in finding her ring in 1995 after it went missing in her kitchen. She took the ring off and placed it on a surface she had been baking on.

The family searched all over, even taking up the tiling during renovations years later hoping they would find it. It was not until 16 years later that Lena would discover the ring while pulling up carrots in her garden when she noticed the white gold band, set with seven small diamonds. “The carrot was sprouting in the middle of the ring. It is quite incredible,” her husband Ola said to the newspaper.

The couple suspects that the ring fell down a sink back in 1995 and was lost among vegetable peels that were either turned into compost or fed to their sheep. “I had given up hope,” Mrs. Paahlsson said, also mentioning that she would like to have the band widened so that she can wear it once again. “Now that I have found the ring again I want to be able to use it,” she said.

Keep Reading: Woman Confused About Widower Still Wearing A Wedding Ring, Brings It Up During Lunch Break And Things Get Out Of Hand

Sources

  1. Woman finds long-lost diamond ring on carrot in garden.” BBC. August 16, 2017.
  2. “Sweden: Wedding ring ‘found on carrot’ after 16 years” BBC. December 21, 2011.

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