Woman finds angel after losing wallet
Published: December 17, 2005
Man who found wallet sought to repay kindness shown to him
Paula Rigsbee believes in angels on earth.
In fact, she’s convinced she found hers recently in the form of a Northeast Richland electrician.
The West Columbia woman’s story took place last weekend, when she was traveling to Greenwood to visit her mother.
Rigsbee, who works in the histology lab at Palmetto Health Baptist, had stopped at a convenience store on her way out of town to fill up her tank. But she left the station unaware she had dropped her wallet from the front pocket of her jean jacket.
“I didn’t know I had done that,” Rigsbee said. “I didn’t realize it was missing until I got almost home because I didn’t need it.”
Once she did, she frantically called her mother asking her to check the couches at her home. But that search and Rigsbee’s own inspection of her car turned up empty.
Only after arriving home did she find a note on her front door from a stranger saying he had found the wallet and that he had left it in her mailbox.
“All my money was there. Nothing was missing. Nothing,” Rigsbee said. “I don’t know if I cried harder at losing it or at getting it back.”
She eventually learned that her “angel” was Andre Williams, a Northeast Richland electrician.
Williams was picking up a friend, Lavell Wilson, in West Columbia on the way to complete a job in Blythewood. The two had stopped by the same convenience store Rigsbee stopped at to get some coffee. On his way out, Williams stepped on something. When he looked down, he discovered the wallet.
“We were trying to figure out what to do,” he said.
After locating Rigsbee’s driver’s license, Williams — who was unfamiliar with the area — spent nearly an hour looking for Rigsbee’s home where he left the note and the wallet.
“That was it,” he said.
Rigsbee was somewhat less matter-of-fact about the goodwill gesture.
“If he had been there when I got home, I probably would have married him,” she said. “It’s encouraging to know there are still people like that. You don’t see them everyday and you don’t always hear about them. I wouldn’t get rid of this note for anything in the world.”
For his part, Williams said he was just offering the same kindness that’s been shown to him.
“There are a lot of good folks in the world,” he said. “I do good because a lot of good has been done to me.”
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