NORTH ANDOVER — Lisa Stump is on a personal mission to locate the owner of an engagement ring she found a couple of weeks ago.
The 39-year-old Andover woman knows it would be a lot easier to take the ring she discovered in a parking lot near Market Basket at the North Andover Mall and turn it over to the police.
But she doesn't want to leave it up to police because of the special bond she feels with the ring's owner. She found the ring while looking for an 80-year-old engagement ring passed down to her by her husband's grandmother that she lost last Christmas.
So Stump is driven to do the good deed herself, hoping that it might bring her luck in her own search.
She said it's her duty to "return this precious ring to the person who lost it and wept over it as I wept over mine.
"I really want to find the owner for this," said Stump, who has contacted North Andover police to see if somebody is looking for a ring. "If I never get my own ring back, I will still feel that my own prayers were answered in a meaningful way by allowing me to help someone else."
Stump's attitude has been bolstered by the knowledge that the exhaustive search for her own ring also led to the recovery of a wedding ring she had lost a couple of years ago.
In early February, Alicia Terenzi, a metal detecting hobbyist from Gloucester, responded to one of Stump's ads soliciting help in finding her missing engagement ring.
Terenzi refused to accept a cash reward offer or any money for her time and expenses.
"She just wanted to look for buried treasure and help someone out at the same time — a true pirate, but a good one," Stump recalled.
But all Terenzi found was loose pocket change at the Market Basket.
While she was there, Stump figured it might be worth having Terenzi check her backyard, where she had lost her wedding ring. Terenzi found it in just 15 minutes, prompting Stump to hug her and cry.
A couple of weeks later, Stump decided it was a good time to go looking for her missing engagement ring again, this time near one of several area snowbanks she's been checking as the snow melts.
School had been canceled that Friday because the electricity was out in much of the town. She drove over to the North Andover Mall with her children and pulled over to the side of the parking lot where the snowbanks are located and got out.
"I looked down. There, shining in the mud, completely washed clean by all the rain, was not my engagement ring, but someone else's," Stump recalled. "It was beautiful. It was two weeks to the day since Alicia had found my wedding ring."
Stump doesn't want to publicize a description of the ring for fear that someone other than its rightful owner might try to claim it. Instead, she's asking the ring's owner to contact her via e-mail at ifoundaring@ymail.com with a description of the ring and where in the parking lot it was lost.
At the same time, Stump is continuing her search for her own engagement ring.
Her missing ring has a round center stone with three rectangular bezel cut diamonds on either side, as well as four small round diamonds in a handmade platinum setting. There's an inscription inside that she won't disclose because it will identify it as her ring.
Stump called the ring her most treasured material possession.
"My husband's grandmother wore it down the aisle on her wedding day and every day afterwards during her long and full life," she said. "She died before my husband and I met, but she specifically willed it to him to give to his chosen bride. I've always felt a special bond with her through this piece of jewelry.
"My husband proposed to me on bended knee with that ring. I wore it down the aisle. It is a concrete symbol of my wonderful marriage to a wonderful man, and it means so very much to me. I am heartsick over losing it."
Stump married her husband Glen, 47, in 1999. Both are software engineers who live on Haverhill Street in Andover. They have three boys: Eddie, 6, Dan, 5, and Luke, 4.
Stump thinks the ring bounced out of her purse during the week after Christmas, but doesn't recall where and has been searching locations from Andover to Amesbury ever since she lost it.
She's enlisted the services of a hypnotist to see if she could remember. She's called dozens of places and checked countless snowbanks.
She even compiled a diary of every place she visited and delivered special posters to those locations. She's also left them at pawn shops. She's checked with jewelry stores and area police.
Stump has also maintained a blog, http://lost-and-found-and-found.blogspot.com/, which chronicles the story of her missing ring and the two she found.
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