The Salvation Army in Cambridge says a woman who donated her wedding and engagement rings in a bell ringer’s kettle earlier this month has gotten those rings back.
A note that was with the gift to the Salvation Army said the donor’s husband had died, and that she hoped the rings could be sold to buy presents for children. That prompted another woman, also a widow, to give $21,000 to the charity, saying she wanted the rings returned to the donor. But the Salvation Army didn’t know who donated the rings. Lt. Michael Harper of the Cambridge Salvation Army says a regular donor stopped by a kettle last week, where his wife was ringing a bell.
“So she came by and said, 'Isn’t it amazing that somebody offered $21,000 for those rings, and my wife said, 'Yes, we’re stunned by that.’ And the woman began to cry,” he said. “And at that point my wife put two and two together and said, 'Did you donate the rings?’ And she said yes.”
Harper says the woman got her rings back on Monday, in an emotional meeting with the donor of the money. Both say they wish to remain anonymous. Harper says the woman who donated her rings told them she’d met her deceased husband when she was volunteering as a bell-ringer years before, and he bought her a hot chocolate.
