In 2004, Mary Grams lost her engagement ring while tending to weeds on her family’s farm in Alberta, Canada, believing it was lost forever.
Despite searching for days, Mary couldn’t find her ring. Then, in 2017, nearly 13 years later, her daughter-in-law discovered an oddly shaped carrot in the garden. To everyone’s surprise, the carrot had grown around a diamond ring.
"I was in the garden for something and I saw this long weed. For some reason, I picked it up and it must have caught on something and pulled [the ring] off," Mary Grams recalled of the day she lost her engagement ring in 2004. She had worn the ring since 1951, a year before marrying her husband, Norman. "We looked high and low on our hands and knees. We couldn’t find it. I thought for sure either they... it or something happened to it."
At the time, Mary didn’t tell her husband about losing the ring. To spare his feelings, she bought herself a similar-looking ring and hoped he wouldn’t notice it was missing.
“I didn’t tell him, even, because I thought for sure he’d give me heck or something,” Mary told CBC Canada.
Mary and her family eventually moved to Camrose, but they continued to maintain the garden at their old farm near Armena, which had been in their family for over 105 years.
“I knew it had to belong to either grandma or my mother-in-law because no other women have lived on that farm,” Colleen Daley told reporters. “I asked my husband if he recognized the ring. And he said yeah. His mother had lost her engagement ring years ago in the garden and never found it again. And it turned up on this carrot.”
Daley added: “If you look at it, it grew perfectly around the [ring]. It was pretty weird looking,” “I’ve never seen anything like that. It was quite interesting.”
Mary was obviously thrilled to have her engagement ring back. She shared that she intends to keep it on her finger where it belongs.
She said: “I’m going to wear it because it still fits.”
Sadly, Mary’s husband passed away over five years ago, not long after the two celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary.