Diamond Ring Missing For 30 Years Found in Log Cabin
The ring had been accidentally dropped through the home's floor cracks.
— -- 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.
“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.”
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."