Strangers Help Lost Mementos Find Their Owners
Published: August 21, 2006
In addition to the devastating damage, irreplaceable mementos of life’s milestones were lost in the tornado that hit the Stoughton area a year ago.
But it wasn’t long before amazing finds starting turning up in fields and yards miles away, such as letters from World War II, childhood photos, dolls, blankets and even a wedding dress.
The dress, as WISC-TV first reported, landed in a farm field in Fort Atkinson, where it sat for two months before it was found and returned to the bride.
Many other items made their way back home with a lot of thoughtful effort from complete strangers.
“(We received items from) people in the Milwaukee area, West Bend (and) Waukesha. It just came for weeks afterwards. Just recently, we received an envelope from stuff people forgot to send last fall,” said Marty Lamers, chief at the Stoughton Fire Department.
Jane Lang volunteered to coordinate a lost-and-found effort that she said sort of took on a life of its own.
“Many of the pictures that we recognized the people, and we’d call them and tell them to come in and pick it up. And when they’d come in and see someone else’s or their neighbors and recognize things,” Lang said.
Matt Roy and his girlfriend found the wedding dress in Fort Atkinson. They said that even if it was a little dirty, they knew that somewhere a bride would want her dress back.
Hundreds of miles away in Las Vegas, the bride’s vacationing parents recognized their daughter’s gown when the story was picked up by local TV stations.
“I broke into tears. It was jubilation to have it back and know that she’ll have it now and be able to pass it on to her child,” said Kathy Farrell, the mother of the bride, in November 2005.
“They could have just so easily thrown it aside, and they were really nice to go to all the effort just to make sure somebody got their dress back,” said Cailin Farrell-Ringelman in November 2005.
It’s the same reason Lang continues to keep watch over the last remaining keepsakes — just in case there can be one more reunion.
The wedding dress was in amazing shape for being in a field for two months. It was missing only a couple of beads and had a small hole in the train.
The remaining unclaimed items will be on display this weekend for a final time at a commemorative event at the Stoughton High School auditorium. The community is invited to attend the open house.
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