While busying herself with duties relative to that of being secretary to the police chief, Zachary resident Brandy Hannum received an email message from an odd name on her ancestry.com account — jackanddicks — and like many of us do in the course of a busy day, chalked the message up to being spam.
Within a few minutes, however, a similar message appeared on her eBay account.
"This time, I thought, 'OK, I'll bite,' and I read the message," said Hannum, the mother of two boys and wife to Zachary Lt. Trevor Hannum.
The message said a family heirloom had been found. The sender, whose name is Chris Mathis, commented he noticed Hannum, who uses the name dextersmom, had not been logged into her account for eight months, so he did an Internet search for the username and found her eBay account.
"I own a pawnshop in Junction City, Kansas, and have something that may be very dear to you, if you are descended from these people," Mathis wrote in an email.
He then sent her a link to some photos on the Jack and Dick's Pawnshop Facebook page.
"Take a look and call me," Mathis said, offering up his work and cellphone number.
"I honestly thought it was a hoax," Hannum said. "I'm thinking, this guy probably wants some money and there's no way I'm falling for this." However, the message wasn't a hoax, nor were the photos, which were of a simple gold wedding band engraved on the inside with the initials LMM to ORW and the date July 27, 1892.
Hannum's great-great-grandmother, Olivia Ruffin Wade, of West Feliciana Parish, was given the band by her husband, Laurent Marius Martin, of New Orleans, on their wedding day — July 27, 1892.
According to Mathis, the gold band had been pawned for cash along with some other jewelry and was in the process of being sorted and melted when the owner noticed the engravings inside the ring.
"We didn't want any money from them, and we often try to find the owners of all old jewelry like that. I knew that this ring had to be important to someone," Mathis said.
"I was in shock. What are the odds of all six initials and the date being the same? I just can't believe he found us, and it's amazing what technology makes possible," Hannum said.
Mathis searched wedding certificates issued in that year and somehow was able to find names matching the initials on the ancestry site.
It was there that he saw Hannum's email address listed under some of her relatives names and thought he'd take a shot at contacting her.
Hannum said she immediately called her aunt, Sue Charlet, of Zachary, to tell her about the strange but exciting news.
Laurent and Olivia W. Martin were married at Ellerslie Plantation in Tunica Hills and had three children: Evelina McCaleb Martin, Laurent Wade Martin and Theodore Howard Martin, who is the grandfather of Charlet and Hannum's mother, Olivia Stelly.
Charlet called the pawnshop owner and after several emails and phone calls were exchanged, the ring was on its way back to Louisiana.
"We received it May 5," Charlet said. "It's pretty amazing the power of the Internet, but more astounding is that there are still people out there, like this man, who took the time to track us down and return the ring to the owner's descendents."
Theodore Howard Martin grew up to be the sheriff of West Feliciana for many years and was the father of Dr. Howard Martin, of Zachary, and of Hannum's grandmother, Dorothea Martin Stelly.
Hannum's mother, Olivia Stelly, who was named after Olivia Ruffin Wade, is now wearing the ring on her pinky finger.
"My mother, Dorothea, had shown me a photo of my grandmother years ago and who I was named after," Stelly said. "It's a real warm and heartfelt story ... the story of Olivia's ring."
Source: Pawnshop owner tracks down descendents of wedding band
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