KAMLOOPS, B.C. — When Martha Shepherd answered the phone, the last thing she expected to hear was that someone found her wallet — 35 years after her purse was stolen.
The caller identified himself as a Vancouver Island police officer, and Shepherd assumed the worst.
“You automatically think it’s bad news,” said the Kamloops, B.C., resident.
The officer was a sergeant from the RCMP detachment in Ucluelet — a place Shepherd last visited in 1979, when it was known as Long Beach.
The Mountie asked Shepherd if she’d lost a purse.
“I said yes and he asked when,” she said.
“I said, ‘I can’t remember, but it was at Long Beach.' “He said they were drying it out and they’d be sending a parcel.”
A highways worker cleaning a ditch found the wallet.
Shepherd was on a camping trip on Long Beach in 1979 when someone broke into her car and stole her purse. Her wallet contained about $100 in cash.
“I asked him, ‘I don’t suppose there was $100 in there?’” she said.
There wasn’t. But the community pitched in and sent Shepherd $100 in a package along with all her old identification.
They included souvenirs such as a blanket from the Ucluelet First Nation, bumper stickers, home-canned salmon, magnets and cards signed by residents.
Shepherd said she hasn’t been back to Ucluelet since her purse was stolen and had no intention of ever returning.
“But now I want to go,” she said. “I’d like to in the summertime.” (Kamloops This Week)
