An Oklahoma family was reunited with their late mother’s Bible after a man found it while mowing his lawn.
Terry Ward of Nikoma Park spotted the Bible last week in his flower bed.
“It rained all night, so it must have just been there for a little while because it wasn’t wet,” Ward told KFOR-TV. “Just laying there with some screws and some bullets.”
Ward noticed that the name “Pearl Williams” and the year 1946 were printed inside. He contacted City Hall in an effort to locate the owner but there was no record of anyone with that name living in the town.
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Ward went a step further and sought help from the local police and that’s when they found an address listed in Del City.
“So I contacted the Del City Police Department and they went by the address,” Nicoma Park Police Lt. Mike Weiss said. “Luckily, the Bible’s owner – her son – still lived at that address.”
Lisa Bennett, Williams’ daughter, was overjoyed to see the special keepsake, especially since she had just recently lost her mother.
“It was very emotional,” Williams said. “We lost my mom in October. So that was hard enough and now to find out that I have [her] Bible gives me part of her.”
And Bennett found a few of her mother’s cherished mementos nestled inside the Bible.
“Her wedding announcement was in the Bible from where she and my dad got married,” Bennett explained. “She kept different things that were very important to her.”
She added how thankful she was for Ward’s consideration and the police work that went into returning the Bible.
“She was a big part of my life so when I lost her I lost a lot of her,” Bennett noted. “Finding little bits and pieces and keeping little pieces of her helps me rebuild that little loss in my heart.”
Lt. Weiss said this type of happy ending makes him truly enjoy his job.
“This is the kind of story that makes it nice to be a police officer,” he explained. “It makes it nice to be an investigator that you can find somebody’s family Bible and return it to them.”
The family and police are working to determine how the Bible got in Ward’s yard and if other items are missing from Williams’ home.