Time capsules are usually left behind intentionally, but sometimes they’re entirely accidental.
Fifty-four years ago, Sharon Day was a 16-year-old student at Fayetteville High School in West Virginia. She was attending a school dance in 1968 when she misplaced her wallet, which was loaded with her important personal effects.
Inside the wallet, Sharon had dozens of photographs of her friends and family, her social security card, and other necessary items. She was crushed to lose her wallet and all of its contents, but Sharon came to terms with the fact that her wallet was likely lost for good.
Fast forward to December 2022! Bradley Scott owns New River Contracting, a company that was hired to renovate the former Fayetteville school building to make a new apartment complex. The school closed its doors in 2019. Workers were removing some ductwork when items suddenly started raining from the ceiling.
“There was some old admission tickets to a boxing match and some other things that all fell out of there when we broke that loose and opened it up for the first time in 100 years,” Brad told WVVA-TV.
Since Sharon had meticulously labeled each photograph with the person’s name, and since the wallet contained her Social Security card, Brad was confident he’d be able to track her down. He shared a few items from the wallet on Facebook, and social media did the rest. It took just one week to track Sharon down!
Sharon was shocked when her sister directed her to Brad’s Facebook post. She says she never dreamed she’d see her wallet again, but now that she has it back she’s enjoying the memories it’s stirring up.
“I was excited because I knew there was things that was mine that belonged to me, and I like my pictures of the people that I went to school with and friends,” she said. “It’s something that I never thought I would see or know what was going on about it.”
Sharon plans to turn those old photos into a scrapbook, and she’s thrilled to have this unofficial time capsule back in her possession. We’ll never know how the wallet ended up in the building’s duct work, but the important thing is it’s back where it belongs now!
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