Woman’s long-missing class ring returned, 32 years after it disappeared
SAN DIEGO — Back in 1988, Maria Aviles’ was crushed when her high school class ring — a reminder of her happiest days at James Madison High School in Clairemont in the 1970s — disappeared from the bedroom of her home.
For 32 years, there was no trace of the keepsake. Then last month, the blue-jewelled ring unexpectedly resurfaced in a Facebook post by a man in Maine hoping to find its longlost owner. A fellow Madison High alumna himself, he had purchased the ring in a New Hampshire antique shop last fall. But when he discovered her name engraved inside, he decided to track her down and return it.
Aviles, 60, said she wonders how the ring made its journey across the country and where it’s been hiding all these years. But she’s grateful for the serendipitous reunion with her most-treasured high school memento.
“When I first heard that someone found my ring, I thought ‘I’m looking for a feelgood moment.’ Good things can happen and there are good people out there and this is what happened to me,” Aviles said.
Born Maria Martinez, Aviles has spent her whole life in Clairemont, attending Hawthorne Elementary, Edison Junior High and then Madison. Most of her classmates were close friends who she has known since kindergarten and she is still tight with today. So when her parents bought her a Madison senior class ring, complete with her name “Maria Martinez” engraved inside the band, she treasured it. .
“They bought it for my senior year and it meant a lot to me. My mom gave me her senior ring, so I wanted to be able to pass my ring on to my daughters if I ever had any,” she said.
After high school, Martinez married and became a mom. Then in her late 20s she went through a divorce and moved back into her parents’ home. She kept her class ring in a jewelry box on the dresser in her bedroom. One day she went into the room to get a pair of earrings and the whole jewelry box was gone. She said she’s certain she knows the person who took the box but she was never able to prove it.
“My mom just told me ‘you have to let it go. Chalk it up to experience and move on,’” she said.
Life did move on for Aviles, who married again and now
runs a daycare business from her Clairemont home. In 2015, her son from her second marriage, Juan Aviles Jr., graduated from Madison High, as well.
Then in mid-December, one of her girlfriends from Madison tagged Aviles in a post on the high school’s alumni page on Facebook. The son of a man in Maine was trying to help his dad track down the owner of the engraved class ring. .
She called the man, who didn’t want his name used for this article. He told her that he had also graduated from Madison High in the mid-1970s and moved to the East Coast, where he enjoys shopping at vintage and antique shops in New England.
hen he took the ring to a jeweller to have the stone removed, the jeweller discovered the engraving. The man hadn’t known Aviles in high school as they were not in the same class, but he thought she might want the ring back if he could find her.
Within days of their phone call, the man mailed Aviles the ring, which arrived just before Christmas. Because she said it’s the best Christmas present she could have ever received, and it represents kindness and goodwill, she hung the ring on her Christmas tree. She said it will now become a permanent part of her holiday ornament collection.
“There’s no price you can put on a sentimental item,” Aviles said.