In 2004, Mary Grams lost her engagement ring while tending to the weeds at her family’s farm in Alberta, Canada. She thought she would never see it again. For days, she searched high and low, but to no avail. Little did she know that nearly 13 years later, a surprising discovery would reunite her with her beloved ring.
It all started in 2017 when Mary’s daughter-in-law plucked a peculiar-looking carrot from the garden. To everyone’s astonishment, the carrot had an unexpected accessory — a diamond ring tightly wrapped around its root.
Mary recalled the day she lost her engagement ring, “I went to the garden for something and I saw this long weed. For some reason, I picked it up and it must have caught on something and pulled [the ring] off.” She had worn the ring since 1951, a year before she married her husband, Norman. “We looked high and low on our hands and knees. We couldn’t find it. I thought for sure either they took it or something happened to it.”
Not wanting to upset her husband, Mary decided to keep the loss a secret and bought herself a similar-looking ring, hoping he wouldn’t notice it was missing. “I didn’t tell him because I thought for sure he’d give me heck or something,” she shared with CBC Canada.
Even though Mary and her family had moved away, they still maintained the garden at their old farm near Armenia, which had been in their family for over 105 years. Colleen Daley, Mary’s daughter-in-law, realized whom the ring could belong to. “I knew it had to belong to either grandma or my mother-in-law because no other women have lived on that farm,” she explained. When she showed the ring to her husband, he recognized it immediately. It was his mother’s long-lost engagement ring, which she had misplaced in the garden years ago.
“It was pretty weird-looking,” Daley described. “If you look at it, it grew perfectly around the ring. I’ve never seen anything like that. It was quite interesting.”
Mary was overjoyed to have her engagement ring back in her possession. She intends to wear it proudly on her finger where it belongs. “I’m going to wear it because it still fits,” she said with a smile.
Although Mary’s husband passed away over five years ago, not long after their 60th wedding anniversary, this incredible discovery brings back cherished memories of their long and loving marriage.