| Sources |
- [S73] Rawlings Funeral Home, Book 2, 10 Jul 1966.
Herman Burnett Seagle obituary
- [S106] The Mountain Press, 17 Feb 2007.
Special Delivery
Class ring returned after more than 20 years
By: GAIL CRUTCHFIELD, Community News Editor
February 17, 2007
KODAK - Nellie France didn't think she would ever see it again. The ring disappeared more than 20 years ago when her son, Mike, took it to school and accidentally lost it.
But last week she received a special delivery courtesy of an employee of the Kodak Post Office. Her high school class ring is once again on her finger, the fit just a little bit tighter than it was in 1965.
"I never dreamed I would see it again," France said. "I thought that was it was just gone."
Beverly Hensley was the good Samaritan who finally gave France back a little bit of her past.
"I honestly and truly don't know where I came across the ring," Hensley said.
She suspects the ring came to her house with some items her daughters brought from her father-in-law's home.
She said her father-in-law used to upholster couches for a living and would find things in them, but she's not sure if that's where the ring first surfaced.
"My girls go through jewelry and stuff and they brought it up to the house and it's been in my jewelry box for years," Hensley said.
While looking through her jewelry one day, Hensley came across the ring and decided she needed to find its owner. She graduated from Sevier County High School in 1985, but this ring was from a class that graduated 20 years earlier and had the initial NRS.
Hensley and a friend Jackie Brown, who is a SCHS school teacher, often walk around the school for exercise. Recently, however, they've moved indoors because of the cold. She suggested to Brown that they take a look in the school's library to see if they could find out who NRS was and possibly return the ring.
In the class photo for 1965, there was only one person whose name would match with the ring, Nellie Ruth Seagle.
"I said, 'I bet that's her,'" Hensley said.
A couple of days later, Hensley was working at the Kodak Post Office when she mentioned the ring and the suspected owner to her co-worker, Mary Shell.
Shell, Hensley said, graduated from SCHS in 1967 and brought her 1965 yearbook to work the next day.
"I said, 'That's her right there,'" Hensley said. "That's got to be her. And she said, 'Beverly, I know her.'
"I said, 'You've got to be kidding," Hensley added.
France, of Strawberry Plains, knew Mary Shell as Mary Watson when she was in school. Shell is a close friend of her niece, Buelah Allen, and that's who Shell called to get in touch with France about her long-lost ring.
"Mary called my niece to find out how to get in touch with me and my niece called me yesterday morning," France said on Jan. 7. "She said, 'I've got some information about your class ring,' and told me Mary's co-worker had found the ring and it had NRS in it."
On Jan. 6, France called Hensley and they decided France would come and pick up her ring the next day at the Kodak Post Office.
"She was up there at the counter and was shaking she was so excited," Hensley said.
France said she recognized the ring right off.
"I knew it was mine when I saw it," she said. "It's purple. I think they call it starburst, with old English S."
She said she even looked in her old high school annual to make sure there was no one else with the same initials graduating that year.
"I'm just real excited that I have it back," France said. "She didn't have to do that. I was so grateful that she did, because it couldn't mean much to anybody else, but it does to me."
* gcrutchfield@themountainpress.com
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, d. 10 Jul 1966 (Age 55 years)