Forty-two years ago, Fort Vancouver High School graduate Barbara Pederson spent a day on the beach at Wintler Park. Before sunbathing, she took off her class ring — a precious graduation present from her parents — and put it in her bag. She didn’t want an unsightly tan line on her finger when her boyfriend, Jeff James, popped the question.
When she got home that summer day in 1982, she reached into the bag for the ring but came up empty. That’s when she remembered: At the end of the day, she’d turned her bag upside down to shake out the sand. She must have dumped the ring out with the sand. She returned to Wintler Park several times over the next three weeks, she said, desperately searching for a glint of silver or a twinkle from the ring’s garnet.
“Finally, I had to tell my mom and dad. I felt horrible,” said James. “My parents were middle class; $200 was a big deal.”
Soon enough, gold replaced silver: An engagement ring, followed by a wedding ring. She married Jeff James and is still married to him over four decades later. Barbara James, 61, a retired nurse and former director of women’s and children’s services at PeaceHealth Southwest Medical Center, said she’s lived her whole life in Vancouver. She’s been to Wintler Park many times, she said, but her ring remained stubbornly hidden beneath shifting sands and an undulating water line.