Skip to main contentSkip to navigationSkip to navigation
The ruins of Kuusisto Castle in Kaarina, Finland.
The ruins of Kuusisto Castle in Kaarina, Finland. Photograph: Independent Picture Service/Universal Images/Getty
The ruins of Kuusisto Castle in Kaarina, Finland. Photograph: Independent Picture Service/Universal Images/Getty

Ring misplaced in US 47 years ago found in forest in Finland

This article is more than 4 years old

Maine resident Debra McKenna received item in post after it was unearthed by metal detectorist

An American woman’s high school class ring, which was lost in Maine in 1973, has been found in a forest in Finland.

Debra McKenna lost the item in Portland when she was a student at Morse high school, the Bangor Daily News reported. She said the ring was largely forgotten until a metal detectorist found it buried under 20cm (8in) of soil in a forested Finnish park 47 years later.

Debra Mckenna puts on her late husband’s 1973 Morse high school class ring. Photograph: WGME

The ring belonged to McKenna’s late husband, Shawn, whom she dated throughout high school and college. The couple were married for 40 years until he died in 2017. He gave her the ring before he left for college, and she accidentally left it in a department store.

McKenna said she cried when the ring arrived in the mail at her home in Brunswick last week.

The ring was buried in a Finnish forest. How it got there is a mystery. Photograph: WGME

“It’s very touching in this world of negativity, to have decent people step forward and make an effort,” McKenna said. “There are good people in the world, and we need more of them.”

A Finnish Ilta-Sanomat news organisation reported in January that Marko Saarinen, a sheet-metal worker, was using a metal detector in a park in Kaarina, a small town in south-west Finland, when he found the ring.

He noticed its inscription “Morse high school” and contacted the school’s alumni association. It identified Shawn as the owner because it also bore the 1973 graduation date and the initials “SM” .

Associated Press contributed to this report

Explore more on these topics

Most viewed

Most viewed