A Baltimore woman’s wedding band was lost for nearly 2 years; Here’s how she got it back

Two wedding bands are seen in this undated file image. (Alfonso Vidal via Pexels)

A Baltimore woman’s wedding ring was lost for two years. A monthly community clean-up at the Canton square helped her get it back.

“I was pretty surprised. I hadn’t checked the Canton Neighbors Facebook page group, but (my daughter) called me and said, ‘Mom, your ring is found,’” said Kathy Noble. “I thought it was gone forever.”

Noble’s daughter, Heather Linington-Noble, said she hardly goes on Facebook. She decided to one day last week, and the first post that popped up was a photo of her mother’s ring.

“I looked at it and I saw this post saying, ‘Anybody lost a ring?’ And I saw the picture before I read it. I was like, ‘That really looks like my mom’s lost ring, but there’s no way, because it has been lost for a long time,’” Linington-Noble said. “I read it, and I was like, ‘Oh my goodness.’ I just immediately commented, ‘That’s my mom’s ring!’”

The post came from Kayla Powers, who said she was participating in her restaurant group’s monthly community clean-up at the square.

“I was picking up cigarette butts under the benches and I found her gold ring smashed into the mud,” Powers said. “It had an engraving on it and a year, so I figured I’d post it on our neighborhood Facebook group just to see if someone would recognize it. The ring was so old, I didn’t have a lot of hope.”

The little bit of hope she had was just enough as Linington-Noble was able to connect both Powers and her mother.

“I got her phone number, dropped it off at her house, and she was so elated,” said Powers. “I’m so happy a small community could come together and get it back to her safely.”

Noble said she lost the ring in 2023, the same year her daughter was diagnosed with breast cancer.

“(It) was pretty disappointing. I mean, 2023 was a really bad year for us because our daughter had very serious breast cancer. Compared to that, it was kind of irrelevant,” said Noble. “I didn’t fret about it too much. Plus, my friends had guilt-tripped my husband into getting me a new one.”

While Noble had a new ring, it wasn’t engraved, and it doesn’t hold the same sentiment as her original wedding band.

“2023 was a very hard year for all of us,” Linington-Noble said. “But I think that that makes it even harder that it was lost, and even more meaningful that it was found again.”

Now, Liningto-Noble is cancer-free, and her mother finally has back the ring she once had on her finger to symbolize her over 40 years of marriage.

“I am very appreciative, it was very nice to realize that somebody would go to the trouble to try to find me, and it worked,” Noble said.

“Part of the reason I don’t go on Facebook very often right now is I feel like I’m kind of hiding from everything, so I don’t get stressed out about what’s going on in the world. So, it was nice to log on one day and see, the first thing I see is this,” Linington-Noble said. “I just want to thank Kayla for finding it, for one, for taking the time with her coworkers to come out and work on cleaning up the square, and taking the time to immediately try to find the owner, all of that together is lovely.”

Noble said the original ring was a little big on her hand, and she thinks she may have lost it while picking up after her dog. Now, she has two rings on her finger, one symbolizing her and her husband’s commitment over 40 years ago and one to remind her of this memory.