Maxine McLeod Miller was walking along a beach on Edisto Island, South Carolina, in August, just as she had countless times before. Her grandfather owned beachfront property there for as long as she could remember, and she would often take advantage of it as a child. Now over 50 years old, she didn’t see it as much as she used to. She lived in Charleston and would only go down to the beach when she was visiting family.
A Gold Ring
Miller’s curiosity from her childhood sparked in her as she scanned the beach for turtle hatchlings. That’s when she saw something. At first, she thought it was just more litter. She picked up what she suspected was a cigar band, but it was unlike anything she’d seen before. She was holding a beautiful ring in her hand.
By her estimate, she saw it at the perfect time. The tide had briefly uncovered the ring from the sand. If she had taken her walk later, it would have been buried again.
Miller knew that the ring was most likely dearly missed. Although she wanted to find who it belonged to, that wouldn’t be an easy feat. She read the inscription inside the ring. There was a Latin phrase, “virtus junxit mors non separabit.” Miller later found out that it meant, “what virtue has joined together, death shall not separate.”
100 Years Old
Then she saw another inscription, much thinner than the other one. It was a name! Herman H Hahn. But that wasn’t all. She also saw a date after the name, 1919! This meant that the ring was just over a hundred years old!
Miller decided to go to social media. She took photos of the ring and made a post with the caption, “I found this in the sand in front of our house this morning. Inscription appears to be Herman H Hahn 1919. Could this be yours?”
That’s when Miller found out that the ring had a third inscription. She couldn’t make it out, so she got her 12-year-old daughter, Emma, to help out. She deciphered most of it, and a friend of a hand engraver helped with the last letter. They determined that the last engraving read, “HAS to ARW 2020.” This changed a lot.
Returned
After a lot of searching online, Miller found out that Hahn had a descendant named Andrew Wade Aiken. He could have matched the initials ARW. To make him match it perfectly, she found out that he had gotten married to a woman named Ashley Smith in 2020. The pieces clicked together as they found out from Ashley’s Instagram that her last name was Hollis.
After contacting Ashley, she replied, “Oh my goodness, if it’s my husband’s ring, I am going to be shocked! Don’t want to get my hopes up, but we did lose it in Edisto in 2020. Is it a flat gold band? Any more info you can give me?”
Ten days after the ring was found by Miller, she decided to pay Ashley and Andrew a visit. She stood in front of their home in Mount Pleasant, not too far from Charleston.
She gave the ring back to its rightful owner, and he promised to wear it only on special occasions, not wanting to ever lose it again.
Source – https://www.cbsnews.com/news/missing-family-ring-found-south-carolina-beach/
