NORTH ANDOVER — The diamond ring Lisa Stump of Andover found glistening in a snowbank is back on the finger of its rightful owner, and Jane Sances of North Andover couldn't be happier. She has her bling back.
"I thank the Lord you found it. I felt so sad and upset when I lost it," Sances said of the engagement ring that was returned to her Thursday.
Stump found the ring while searching for an 80-year-old engagement ring her own husband's grandmother gave to him, and Stump lost at Christmas.
"I think it's wonderful you closed this chapter," Stump said when Sances arrived to reclaim the ring she lost Jan. 2 in the North Andover Mall parking lot.
"I would have never kept it knowing that it meant so much to someone else," Stump said. "The story is about us helping each other."
Sances learned about Stump's find from a neighbor who read the story in The Eagle-Tribune and then told her.
Sances e-mailed Stump and the two met for the first time Thursday.
"There is no doubt this is her ring," Stump said after looking at Sances' replacement ring. "Now I'm happy."
Sances stood in the kitchen staring at the ring, laughed, and then cried.
Sances had gone shopping at Market Basket and noticed the ring was missing while driving home. She guessed she lost it somewhere between the supermarket checkout counter and the parking lot.
"It was like the blood was drained out of my body," said Sances, who has been married to her husband, Marc, for 17 years. They have two daughters, Tessa, 13, and Meg, 9.
She pulled over and looked through the car, her pockets and grocery bags, but did not find the ring.
"When I looked at my hands, I felt so empty and realized how much it meant to me," Sances said.
Stump found Sances' engagement ring Feb. 26 in a snowbank in the parking lot.
Sances is amazed at the turn of events.
"I tried not to be excited so I wouldn't be disappointed, but I was very anxious," she said.
Stump said she believes her own ring, which remains missing, bounced out of her purse the week after Christmas. She has done everything to find it, including enlisting a hypnotist to help jog her memory, searching countless snowbanks, and leaving posters at every place she visited on that day and at local pawnshops. She has called jewelry stores and the police and placed ads asking for help.
Alicia Terenzi, a metal detecting hobbyist from Gloucester, came to help Stump find the engagement ring, but instead found the wedding ring Stump also had lost.
"I'm sad about losing it (the engagement ring), but more sad at how upset my wife was," said Glen Stump, who married Lisa in 1999. They have three boys, Eddie, 6, Dan, 5, and Luke, 4.
"The important thing is that we have family, friends and we're all doing well," he said.
