Lost and found, and found - Jun. 08, 2010
John Gardner/Courier
Darlene Norman-Brown gives Neil Rodgers a wallet that belonged to his grandmother Edith Rodgers. The wallet was found in the Norman-Brown home during renovations.
BY JOHN GARDNER
john@stcroixcourier.ca
ST. STEPHEN – A wallet lost 50 years ago has now been found twice.
The June 4 Courier Weekend told how Darlene Norman-Brown had found a number of items in the walls of her Milltown area home during extensive renovations.
One of those items was a wallet containing several items identifying the owner as Edith Rodgers.
On Monday, Rodgers’ grandson, Neil Rodgers showed up at the Courier office seeking more information.
Later that afternoon Norman-Brown met with Rodgers and his wife Debbie and they went through the contents of the wallet.
“I was hoping we would at least get a lead eventually,” said Norman-Brown of locating a family member so quickly after the article was printed.
The experience was especially poignant for Rodgers in that he had picked up the Courier Weekend on June 5, the second anniversary of the death of his mother.
While Norman-Brown could only guess as to the identity of people in photos the wallet contained, Rodgers knew them.
One young man who resembled Edith’s son, Burton, was actually Neil as a child. Coincidentally it was a photo of a grave marker in Holland in Burton’s memory that triggered Norman-Brown to begin the search for the Rodgers family. Burton was killed in combat on Feb. 13, 1945. Neil was born exactly three years later.
“She always said I was the reincarnation of Boo,” said Rodgers of his grandmother’s comparison of himself to his uncle.
One mystery that still remains is how the wallet came to be hidden in the basement of the house in the first place.
Edith was friends with Robert and Dolly Hunter, who lived in the home about the time the wallet was lost.
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