Diamond Ring Missing For 30 Years Found in Log Cabin

The ring had been accidentally dropped through the home's floor cracks.

ByABC News

May 29, 2015, 4:14 PM

Roger S. Austin, left, presents a diamond ring to Beverly J. Parmeter Wednesday along Route 68 in Lisbon where a historic log cabin was in the process of being dismantled and moved to the St. Lawrence Power & Equipment museum in Madrid.
Jason Hunter/Watertown Daily Times

 -- A diamond ring missing for around 30 years was found in the rubble of a 465-square-foot log cabin being dismantled to be relocated to a museum.

Roger Austin, and his wife, Carol Austin, are two of the people working to take apart the cabin in Lisbon, New York, and relocate it to the nearby St. Lawrence Power and Equipment Museum.

Carol Austin said a woman who used to live in the cabin stopped by when she saw the cabin was being taken apart.

“She stopped in and said, ‘Please look for my diamond ring my son lost through a crack on the floor,’” Austin told ABC News of the former resident, Beverly Parmeter.

Jesse D. Martin, Madrid, and employee for D.D. Construction, clings to the side of a historic log cabin Wednesday that he and other coworkers were dismantling along route 68 in Lisbon.

“She knew about where her son told her had lost it. He had taken it out of her jewelry box upstairs and dropped it through the floorboard and the wallboard,” Austin said. “So when we took all of the plaster off, we had a whole bucket full of junk that came out of there.”

When a first look produced no signs of the diamond, Austin brought the 5-gallon jug of “junk” home with her Wednesday and put it through a screen.

“And there it was,” Austin said of the diamond.

The Austins not only found Parmeter’s diamond ring, but also a book that had belonged to Parmeter's daughter.

“We even didn't think there was much chance we would find it.,” Austin said of the diamond ring. “Number one it is small and number two it has been about 30 years…think her son was about five when he lost it.”

A newspaper dating back to 1861 was found on one of the beams of a historic log cabin along Route 68 in Lisbon that was in the process of being moved to the St. Lawrence Power & Equipment museum in Madrid.

Parmeter returned to her old home site on Thursday and was reunited with both the book and the ring, which the Austins had cleaned off and put in a jewelry box.

“She was really happy,” Austin said of Parmeter, who could not be reached today by ABC News. “I think it was her engagement ring so it was more of sentimental value than monetary.”

Parmeter told the Watertown Daily Times she plans to give the ring to her 7-year-old granddaughter.

“I can’t tell you how happy that makes me,” Parmeter said when Austin gave her the ring, according to the Daily Times. “This is so unreal."