Discovery of ring brings rediscovery of memories
As jewelry returned, thoughts turn to the man who’d owned it
A Galway woman found and returned a Siena College ring that belonged to the family of a World War II vet who died in 2016.
Last week, Reeny Milton was sifting through a junk drawer in her home in Galway when she saw the Siena class ring she had found earlier this year lying in the dirt at Saratoga Spa State Park.
It was from the Class of 1949, engraved to “JJF.”
Milton had made a brief initial effort to locate the ring’s owner back in May and forgot about until seeing it once again.
“I just said, ‘I’m going to get this back to the person who owned it,’” she said.
So she called Siena’s alumni office to see if they could match the ring to its owner.
The only JJF in the class of ‘49 was James “Jim” Forth, a Niskayuna resident who died in 2016 at age 91.
What Milton didn’t know when she dialed Siena was that the ring owner’s widow, Barbara, at that time lay dying in Middlebury, Vt. “It just happened to be the week that his wife passed away,” said Milton.
On Friday, Milton returned the ring to the family, just days after Barbara Forth passed away.
“I think you need a heavier chain,” Milton joked to Veronica Forth, the late James Forth’s 17-year-old granddaughter, who had worn the ring around her neck before losing it. While unsure of precisely when and where she lost the ring, she did attend a wedding last year at the park.
“I always wanted to have his dog tags and his rings,” a smiling Veronica said as she was reunited with the ring on the Siena campus.
“He always said, ‘When I’m good and dead you can have them.’ “
The class ring held special meaning for Veronica since she was so close to her grandfather who lived close by in Niskayuna. If they didn’t see each other daily, they would talk on the phone.
“We would have nightly conversations,” Veronica recalled. The exception was Tuesday nights, which was poker night for her grandfather.
They attended church together every Sunday, made regular trips for lunch and to the Barnes and Noble bookstore at the mall. Like her grandfather, Veronica is hoping to attend Siena College.
After he died, Veronica said she grew closer to his step-grandmother who had moved to Vermont recently. She would read James Patterson novels to her – the author was a favorite of both James and Barbara Forth.
James Forth was a full-fledged member of the Greatest Generation. He lived through the Depression and served in World War II as a member of the Army Air Corps, training recruits in gunnery tactics. During the Korean War, he helped run a POW camp and interrogated prisoners.
Rather than brutalizing them, Forth would use empathy and conversation to get prisoners talking, said Veronica. After military service, Forth went to Siena on the GI Bill, majoring in math, which led to a long career with General Electric.
“He was just a good man,” Veronica said.
After retirement he started a consulting firm which was the forerunner of Transfinder, a software firm that helps school buses run more efficient routes.
Barbara was Forth’s second wife. His first wife, Ursula, had died in 1997.
Milton, Veronica and her mother Cathy Forth were marveling at how the connection, via the class ring, came as Barbara Forth was passing away.
A master gardener, Milton had been at the Saratoga park that day in May to do some weed pulling when she spotted the ring by happenstance. “I just saw this little curve of gold,” she said.
As to the timing, both Milton and Cathy Forth believed it was more than a coincidence.
“I think it was meant to be,” said Milton.