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After 42 years, ring is returned
By CHRISTINA HEADRICK, Times Staff Writer CLEARWATER -- Judge Robert Lensing spent 25 years on the bench in Evansville, Ind., presiding over everything from feuds about inheritances to murder trials. And all the while, the energetic, gregarious judge retained his belief in the basic goodness of people. His faith was reaffirmed last week when he received his University of Notre Dame class ring in the mail -- 42 years after it was lost, possibly stolen by his mother's cleaning lady. The rediscovery of the sapphire ring, which had traveled from Indiana to Arizona before it was returned, brought back a tide of memories for Lensing. "I have always believed in people," Lensing said. "And this just shows that there's a lot of good in people." Lensing graduated from Notre Dame in 1959, then went on to law school there. He remembers leaving the ring in a zippered pocket of a jacket he left at his mother's house. Then it vanished, and he was unable to find it. A few years later, Frank Foster, a landscaper with family ties to Indiana, purchased a camper from a family in Petersburg, Ind. Foster and his wife discovered the ring in the seat cushions of the camper, which fit into the back of a pickup truck. How it got there is a mystery. The Fosters dropped the ring in a jewelry box, meaning to try to return it to its owner. But the ring was forgotten. Foster's wife died of cancer about two years ago. He has since remarried, and only recently, his second wife, Donna, came across the ring. She insisted they find its owner. The couple sent a letter to Notre Dame to see if school officials would know the ring's owner based on the inscription: "R.W.L. 59." Notre Dame officials then contacted Lensing, who called the Fosters in January to ask them to send him the ring, which he received Tuesday. Mrs. Foster, 65, said by telephone from Mesa, Ariz., that they were "just delighted to think the owner finally got it back." There was no doubt when Lensing opened the package Tuesday that the ring was his. Although it looked more scratched than he remembered, there were the same etchings of shamrocks, the college's crest and the university's landmark golden dome. Lensing, who is now 63 and a snowbird who winters in a 16th-floor Ultimar I condominium on Sand Key, said he plans to offer to take the Fosters to dinner or perhaps fishing when they are visiting family sometime in Indiana. He wants to say thanks. "They had to go to some trouble to find the owner," Lensing said. "They didn't have to do that." Since his wife, Jan, bought him a new class ring in 1979, Lensing said he may give the old ring to his son as a gift. The phenomenon of class rings long lost, then found, is a theme that recurs in newspaper articles. Class rings, unlike most other pieces of jewelry, bear the initials, school and year of their owner, making it easier for them to be returned years after disappearing. There are several Internet sites with information on lost and found rings, including www.lostandfound.com, which lists 819 people looking for these lost tokens of their school years. The same site also lists 299 people looking for the owners of rings they have found. Are these people also looking in vain? Mrs. Foster doesn't think so. "This just proves you should never give up on something being lost," she said.
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