Wedding ring reunited with family after many years

MERIDEN – A story that was over 10 years in the making has finally come circle.

On Sunday afternoon, Angela Chionchio returned a wedding ring she found on the hiking trail leading up to Castle Craig back in the early 2000s to the ring owners' son Doug Dispersio.

"I finally have closure," Chionchio said after giving the ring to Dispersio. "I'm just excited to hand it over to him."

From this section:A great day to enjoy Castle Craig

Sadly, the ring will not be returned to Lou Dispersio, he died in late February, which when Chionchio found out she was disappointed that she hadn't found the ring sooner.

While on one of her hikes somewhere between 2001 and 2005 Chionchio recalled herself falling down a couple of times because of rain.

"I kind of had my head down to be focused on where I was walking because I didn't want to fall another time and I just saw something shiny, just a spot of it," she recalled. "I had to dig it out of the ground and I cleaned it off and found there was an inscription on the inside that said "To Lou, with all my love Pat. 9-10-1957.""

She immediately thought about putting an ad in the classified section of local newspapers but after moving a handful of times over the following years, she misplaced the ring.

A couple of weeks ago while cleaning her house, due to renovations, she found an old jewelry box and inside of the box was the ring.

This time instead of taking out an ad she went to Facebook to see if she could locate the owner of the wedding ring.

"We didn't have social media when I found it. I could take an ad out in the classifieds, but what are the odds of actually finding the person," said Chionchio, a Middletown resident.

"I took a picture of it and put it on Facebook, I made it a public post so that everyone could share it and it got just under 3,000 shares," she added.

The picture picked up traction online and one of her friends posted it a local Facebook forum.

"One of my friends, Darby (Robbins- Biddle), forwarded it to the 'Meriden, CT Community Forum,' which got picked up by the Record-Journal," she said.

It was the story in the Record-Journal that caught the attention of a friend of Dispersio who forwarded it along to him.

"A friend (Bobby) of mine sent me a text, he's big into social media," said Dispersio who added that he had told Bobby a while back that his parents used to go to Castle Craig often when they were younger.

"I'm not a big Facebook person and your name was out there," Dispersio said to Chionchio. "I saw the article and tried to get in touch with you.

Dispersio then contacted the Record-Journal and was able to get in contact with Chionchio shortly after.

The two exchanged a handful of text messages and one phone call.

It was during that phone call that Dispersio, who lives in Waterbury, knew it was his father's ring.

"She started to read (the inscription) and I was like "oh God this is the same inscription,"" he said. "So right then and there I knew."

"It has the same font and the same cursive," Chionchio added.

The two then decided to meet where the ring was found, at Castle Craig.

Though for Chionchio she knew about the rings existence long before Dispersio did.

See Lou and Pat Dispersio were married twice, once with original inscription date on the ring that was found by Chionchio and another time shortly after.

"They never told me why or what happened," said Dispersio who added that his parents tried to tell him what happened during their first marriage. "I told them I don't want to know, it's not my business."

But for the short time he knew it existed he was happy that he was able to get it back.

"From the time I found out about it until know it's kind of a weird feeling. I have something that was his before I was born," Dispersio said. "This is my lottery. I'll never win the lottery, but the odds of this happening. Finding it is one thing and finding the owner is another."

Dispersio said that he told his mother Pat about it and while she is losing her memory she was happy that it was found.

"It's weird how this happened," Dispersio said. "They came up here when they were young."

ppaguaga@record-journal.com 203-317-2235 Twitter: @PetePaguaga

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