Oakland

Lost Heirloom Discovered After Nearly 20 Years in Oakland

Linda Safir had been searching for her lost sapphire ring, passed down from her mother, for nearly two decades. But all it took to recover the precious heirloom was a landscaper with a keen eye.

Safir says that before her mother, Dolores Fitzpatrick, married her father, she was married to Eddie Finnell who was killed in World War II. Her mom had used the money she received from the Survivors Pension to create a permanent reminder of her first husband: a beautiful sapphire ring with a diamond from her wedding ring embed in the middle.

After Fitzpatrick passed away seven years ago, Safir inherited the ring. "Her health was starting to go and she wanted me to have this ring," Safir said.

But little did she know that she would have the ring just for one week.

On one day, 18 years ago in Oakland, Safir was playing with a dog and chatting with a neighbor in her front yard. She threw a ball to the dog and the ring flew off her finger.

Safir swept her yard in search for the ring, but even a metal detector proved to be useless.

Nearly two decades later, one of Safir's landscapers was blowing leaves off a bush that's steps away from her front door, when he saw a sparkle. Alberto Hernandez had found the lost ring.

"She was almost crying, she was so happy. She gave me a hug," Hernandez said.

Safir's memory of her mother lives on and so does the small bright blue ring.

"I feel like my mom is with me, now that I have it, it’s great," she said.

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