The lost-watch mystery is reminiscent of a case last fall. Monica Schmitt, a school principal from New Lenox, Ill., was searching through possessions left behind by her late grandmother. Among the items she found an Elgin High School class ring marked 1967, engraved with the initials M.D. Schmitt figured the ring must have been a lost item her grandmother somehow had acquired, since their family had no known connection with Elgin or Elgin High School.
Schmitt contacted Tony Sanders, the CEO of Elgin School District U46. He found a copy of Elgin High’s 1967 yearbook and determined that only two graduating seniors that year had the initials “M.D.” Sanders finally figured out that the ring had been owned and lost by Magnus “Mack” Davidson, who after graduation had worked for The Courier-News.
Sanders also learned that Davidson had died in May 2013. But last December Schmitt, Sanders and Davidson’s sister, Sheri Banbury of Gilberts, rendezvoused at Elgin High and Banbury finally got her brother’s ring back.
Schmitt and Banbury believe that Davidson lost the ring, and Schmitt’s grandmother found it, decades ago while both were vacationing in Wisconsin.