Man's lost wallet and glove finds way back home 70 yrs later

Jun 22, 2012 |

Michigan

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A 81-year-old Texas Township man got the ultimate lost-and-found surprise on Thursday, after his wallet and baseball glove which he misplaced nearly 70 years ago, were returned to him.

Then 14 years old, Warren Houghton accidentally dropped the items between two layers of the wall at his one-room school house in Cornish Flat, New Hampshire, an incident he assumes happened when he was retrieving wood for the wood stove early one morning.

They stayed there for about 67 years, judging by the 1944-1945 pocket calendar in one of the wallet flaps.

It wasn't until two weeks ago, when renovations began on the building, that the items were finally discovered, the Kalamazoo Gazette reported.

"He was a little bit surprised by the phone call," Michael Shklar, master of the masonic lodge that now occupies the school building, said.

Houghton received the package via priority mail on Thursday. As he examined pieces of his young self, the memories flooded back.

Inside the wallet, Houghton found pristine photos of his family, a boy scout ID and a perfectly-creased letter from his sister. The ink hadn't faded a bit.

In the letter , she asked if two of their friends, Nate and Phyllis, were "still holding hands." Indeed, they apparently were - they've now been married for 63 years.

"Nathan Hughes was my number one best friend," Houghton said, beaming after he read the note aloud. The two still are best friends, he explained, and just talked on the phone last week.

Preserved in the dry, cool wall gap, the pictures hadn't faded a bit. Houghton found a photo he had carried of his father, who died of stomach cancer in 1938, to remember him by. Another showed his whole family on the porch of their house, located across the street from the school.

All of that was before Houghton joined the US Navy, served in the Korean War, got married and eventually wound up in Michigan.

"Can you believe that?" he said to his wife, Betty, in awe as he examined the toughened baseball mitt.

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