[If you should choose to adopt this prompt to contribute stories of folks who have gone out of their way to lend genealogy-related assistance to others, I would greatly appreciate a mention to Filiopietism Prism whenever you do so. Thank you! And please do use the same photograph below to illustrate the prompt and show it is adopted from this blog. ;-) ]
Sixty years ago Ray and Winnie Hewitt were married in England. Ray gave his bride a gift on that day. It was a silver Coronation crown coin mounted on a necklace and Winnie wore the necklace constantly thereafter.
Winnie died with Alzheimer's at age 83 in December 2012 and so missed the wedding of her granddaughter Lyndsay nine days ago on May 10th. She also missed the long anticipated moment when she and Ray planned to pass on the silver Coronation coin necklace as a gift to Lyndsay on her wedding day. Tragically, Ray was unable to pass on Winnie's cherished necklace to Lyndsay on behalf of Winnie because five days before Winnie died some thieves broke into the Hewitt home and stole items from Ray and Winnie -- including the precious Coronation coin necklace!
But there is more to the story thanks to Good Samaritan Judy Gordon, a former editor at the Macclesfield Express. Judy was given a silver Coronation crown coin identical to the one stolen from the Hewitt home. Judy's grandparents gave her the coin because it was the year she was born. Reading about the loss and sadness in the Hewitt family, Judy gifted the coin she never planned to part with to a family she had never met and Ray had a very special gift indeed for Lyndsay on May 10th when she wed Peter Anderson.
Read more about this Good Samaritan moment here and see Ray Hewitt and his granddaughter Lyndsay with the wedding gift Ray was able to present to Lyndsay on behalf of Winnie thanks to Judy.
Something old, something new, something gifted, and something blue . . .
.png)
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Photograph of the The Good Samaritan sculpture by Francois-Leon Sicard (1862 - 1934). The sculpture is located in the Tuileries Gardens in Paris, France. The photograph is by Marie-Lan Nguyen and has been placed in the public domain by her. See, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Good_Samaritan_Sicard_Tuileries.jpg
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Copyright 2013, John D. Tew
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
What an amazing story of selflessness on the part of Judy. It's so good to hear stories like this.
ReplyDeleteThank you for your comment Jana! You are the first to comment on any of these Samaritan Sunday posts. I was beginning to wonder if anyone was reading them. I especially enjoy finding and writing about these acts of kindness, so it is nice to hear when someone else enjoys them too. :-)
ReplyDelete