Wallet lost at high school reunion arrives in mail

Wallet lost at high school reunion arrives in mail

(Courtesy of Chelene Clyde)


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SOUTH JORDAN — Chelene Clyde had given up hope of finding the wallet she lost at her 20-year high school reunion when a package arrived Thursday.

Inside the package was her red hobo clutch wallet, driver's license, $385 in cash and a note reading "Hi. Found this on a bench in Lake Havasu — no one around. Thought you would need it — Craig."

“Literally, I opened it and I bawled,” Clyde said. “My life has just been so stressful and it was seriously the biggest blessing ever.”

The days leading up to losing her wallet had been particularly trying for the single mother of four. She was diagnosed with stage three renal kidney failure and told she would need a kidney transplant the Friday before she left for her reunion at Lake Havasu High School in Arizona.

“When everything seemed to be going wrong lately, it was crazy to have something so nice," she said.

As an added bonus, the package arrived the day before Clyde’s birthday. She said it was the best gift she could have ever received.

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Clyde received a call from her daughter saying a package for her had been delivered to their old address and a neighbor would be dropping it off. The package was waiting for her on her doorstep when she came home from work.

Not one penny was missing from the wallet, she said. She brought the cash with her for a fun weekend with friends meeting up for their reunion at Lake Havasu High School in Arizona.

“Nothing was taken, not a single thing,” she said. “He didn’t even take out money for postage.”

However, the thing she was most relieved to find was her driver's license. She tried in vain to get a replacement since she lost it on Oct. 12, the morning of her reunion, but found that because of a 2010 change to the law they wouldn't accept her birth certificate from a naval base. She applied to get a birth certificate from San Diego County but was denied three times in one week, she said.

Wallet lost at high school reunion arrives in mail
Photo: Courtesy of Chelene Clyde

“I had done everything to try and recover (the wallet),” Clyde said. “I kept asking at hotels, I walked around to all of the places and no one had turned it in.”

A small act of kindness can go a long way, she said.

Her father looked up the information of the sender online, and said what they found indicated he is likely a man of modest means who probably could have used the money himself. She hasn't had time to write a thank you note yet, but is planning on sending one.

“For someone to make an effort to send it back and get it to the person — to not even put his full name on the return address — right there just hows me he did it because it was right, not that he wanted recognition for it," Clyde said. "It’s something my dad would do.”

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Natalie Crofts

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