The Story of Two Heirlooms and the Love that Unites Them
Author's Note: This story was written in hopes that someone has information about Rose's ring and can help reunite the ring with Rose. The ring was last seen in Fayetteville, NC. Please see contact information and other details at the bottom of the story if you can help solve this mystery. Please help a New Year's wish come true by helping us find Rose's ring!
Each heirloom has a story, many of which are lost as the members of their story pass away or details go unshared. Many heirlooms lose their luster or are unappreciated by the next generation and become just items, story-less and forgotten. The following is the tale of two heirlooms, one old and one new, one lost and one used daily. They are united by love, common ancestry and a story for the ages. Here is their story.
A retired Army Command Sergeant Major visited his father while he was sick. Before leaving, his father walked him to his room where he pulled a small box from his dresser drawer. In it, he explained to Vernon, was a ring that had been gifted to him many years prior. Vernon's father knew that his time was short and wanted Vernon to have the ring while he was still alive.
Vernon took the box from his father and opened it. Inside was a ring more ornate than he himself would ever wear, but one that he had seen on the hand of his father many years earlier. It was gold with three diamonds, two smaller ones that flanked a center stone. They shone with brilliance and Vernon pondered the gift while reminiscing about the man who once wore it.
Vernon took the ring home and placed in his own drawer. It was a ring that was not one he could personally see himself wearing. He lived simply, occupied by other thoughts not concerning jewelry. He had a troop of men to lead, a young wife to support and three children. Perhaps he would give it to his own son one day. Until then, he thought, it would remain tucked away and saved for an occasion worth sharing.
Years passed. Vernon had served in three wars: Korea, World War II and Vietnam. His wife, Rose, had borne him another child, bringing their brood to a total of four with two girls and two boys. Their love story was one for the movies. Meeting at a young age, Vernon and Rose married when he was only 20 and she 16. They basically raised each other and after years of loving one another, had expanded their family to four children, their spouses and five grandchildren. They'd created a home full of joy and packed with memories.
As their fortieth anniversary approached, Vernon pondered what he could give his precious Rose. She'd helped him raise their children during trying times. They'd lived throughout the world during his tenure with the Army and she was a woman who wasn't concerned with treasures or trinkets. Rather, she loved genuinely and simply. She regarded her role as a wife and mother to be her calling and was happy. To her, being his wife was more than enough. Still, he wanted to give her something of beauty that he felt would reflect her own.
The ring. He remembered it and the man who had worn it. What better way to show love than to give his Rose a ring that was his own father's? So Vernon took the gentleman's ring and had it remade into items worthy of his wife's wearing. He had the gold melted down into a band of her size and into earrings. The center diamond was placed on the new, delicate ring and the two diamonds that had once flanked the central one were added to the earrings. It was a three-piece set that would mark their years together. Vernon presented his wife with the ring and earrings on their fortieth anniversary. She treasured them not because of their value, but because of their journey and what they had meant to her father-in-law and husband.
Rose wore the ring from that day forward. It became a new symbol of their marriage and the love they had shared for so long. It was something that she knew she would give to one of her daughters or perhaps a grand-daughter when the time came for someone else to wear it. Until then, it remained on her finger.
Years passed and Rose's hands have become worn, as has her ring. The hands have comforted crying grandchildren, played keys on her piano, washed countless dishes, sewn clothes and scarves, baked delicious meals and held the hand of her dear Vernon when he passed at 80 years old after a year-long fight with leukemia.
Always thinking of family, Rose was excited when she received news that her oldest grand-daughter was pregnant with her first child. A new great-grand baby would be joining the brood! In true form, Rose began making a gift for her littlest one before he was born. What better way to snuggle him than with blankets? So she began making him three receiving blankets and a quilt for him. She picked out the material and took it home to sew into items that would keep him warm and comforted.
That evening she reached to remove her ring from Vernon, which she did nightly before going to bed. It was gone and she realized that in her shopping that day, while thumbing through all the fabric and material, it must have slipped off her finger. It had become loose through the years and she hadn't had it re-sized since the day he gave it to her 25 years prior. After checking her house, calling the stores where she had been and searching anywhere the ring could be, Rose gave up her quest to find it. After mourning her loss, she vowed to press forward and treasure the memories rather than what had represented them.
She poured herself into her project for her new great-grand baby and hoped to give him something that would be a gift he'd appreciate and love. Before he was born, she completed the blankets and gifted them to him at his baby shower.
A month later, Isaac was born. He was her first great-grandson and Rose was ecstatic. As she held him close to her, he snuggled into her and the blanket she had made him. Who would have thought that the16 year old girl who married Vernon and held his hand when saying their vows would one day be holding his great-grandson when she was 82?
Rose looked at her precious legacy in his new blanket. Isaac would never see the ring she'd worn while raising his grandmother and tending to his mother as a child, but he would hear of it. It was the ring she wore and lost while searching for the perfect material to make his blankets. It was the ring worn by his great-great grandfather and passed to his great-grandfather. It was one given as a symbol of a lasting marriage on a fortieth anniversary. It was an heirloom lost that would be forever joined through love and story with his blankets. Blankets that, with care and protection, will become heirlooms of their own. For now, however, they are enough for Isaac. And perhaps (one day) for Isaac's own great-great grandson.
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| Rose and Isaac- meeting in the hospital on his birthday |
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| Rose and Isaac: he's snuggled into her and one of her blankets |
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| Isaac in another of Rose's blankets |
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| Isaac wrapped in his home-made blanket. Dreaming of his great-grandma? |
Want to know more about the man, Vernon, who gave Rose her ring? Check out this post that the author wrote after her grandfather passed in 2007.
