DIDSBURY - A treasured family ring has been returned to its rightful owner after being lost during the rodeo parade. Shirley Dorin reported that she had lost the ring while tossing candy while riding in a 1925 Model T representing the museum in the parade.
Dorin told the Gazette she had no doubt that the ring would be returned and sure enough it was. Although the ring was a little squashed, Dorin was happy to get it back.
"That's Didsbury," said Dorin. "That's one of the reasons I live here. I thought that someone just might return the ring and sure enough they did. It was a really nice thing."
Dorin had bought the ring for her mother in Vienna, Austria while hitchhiking through Europe in 1953.
"I spent most of the money I had on the trip on that ring," she said. "I spied it in a window and thought it had my mother's name on it. My mother was a real supporter of me. Not many mothers in that day and age would have been good with their daughter hitchhiking around Europe."
It was a very eventful trip as Dorin (with the ring) had a front-row seat for the coronation parade for Queen Elizabeth II in London.
The ring has been in several other parades as well, including the 2002 Didsbury rodeo parade on the hand of Dorin's mother Kate Campbell, who at 100 years of age rode horseback.
"My mother always wore the ring," said Dorin. "She wore it in the Didsbury parade at least four times. I've been in the parade myself and I've been wearing the ring. This time I threw it with the candy."
The ring was found in the middle of main street by Anne-Marie Day. Day posted on Facebook that she had found a ring and that although it was squashed it was still intact and repairable. "I was at the parade with my granddaughter who's three," said Day. "She was picking up candy when I spotted something that looked like gold tinfoil on the ground. So it got picked up and I recognized it right away as a gold and opal ring. I knew putting it on the Didsbury discussion page was the one and only way of finding the owner of the ring."
Although Dorin isn't on Facebook and didn't see the post, local resident Joe Mousseau (whose mother Dean is the museum manager and father Rick is town mayor) saw it and helped make the connection and brought the ring and Dorin back together.
The ring was returned to Dorin on the Wednesday (Aug. 23) following the parade.
"To say I am pleased to get it back is the understatement of the year even if I don't get that ring fixed," said Dorin. "To think that someone would return it - because it has such sentimental value to me. My mother just loved that ring; it was a part of her. It's nice to live in a place like Didsbury and have that kind of thing happen. I really did think someone would return it."
- Thanks to Fred Van Vliet, a neighbour of Mrs. Dorin, for helping put together the original story
"That's Didsbury. That's one of the reasons I live here. I thought that someone just might return the ring and sure enough they did. It was a really nice thing."Shirley Dorin
