Ontario woman's lost wallet returned to her daughter 40 years after it went missing
CBC
Vanessa Austin says she was confused when someone showed up at her office in Guelph, Ont. with a wallet for her.
The Fergus woman was amazed when she found out the wallet was her mother's and it was lost 40 long years ago.
"We went in and picked [up the wallet] and I couldn't believe it. It's like a time capsule. It's so well preserved, it looks like, obviously no one touched it in 40 years," Austin said on CBC K-W's The Morning Edition.
The man who found the wallet, Andrew Medley of Detroit, said he was at Toronto's Eaton Centre doing some work at a storage unit when he discovered it in the air ducts.
WATCH | This wallet was returned to a woman in Fergus, Ont., 40 years after her mom lost it:
Austin says she has no recollection of her mom losing the wallet and neither does her mother.
Austin says she grew up in Toronto and as newcomers to Canada, she recalls that every Saturday they would go to the Eaton Centre and just walk around.
"I guess that's where it got lost or stolen," she said.
The floral-print wallet contained coupons to Canada's Wonderland, a Toronto Public Library card, a TD Bank green machine card, mementos from Austin's dad to her mom, and a photo of Austin as a child attached to her mom's immigration documents from their home country of El Salvador.
"It was just all her stuff from El Salvador — so things I've never seen, right? And also my birth certificate, kind of all in bits," Austin said.
Medley is a corporate investigator who was working on another case in January when he went into a rarely used bathroom in the Eaton Centre in a staff only area.
He says he decided to look up in the ceiling for clues for the case he's working on and he noticed the wallet wedged between ductwork and an opening in the wall.
"It was pretty obvious that someone put it there on purpose," he said.
"I took the wallet out and I was with a colleague at the time and we opened it up. We thought maybe it was a couple years old and we were just shocked at how well preserved everything was in there."
The P.E.I. Green Party is calling on government to release the fall fiscal update. The checkup on the province's finances is typically released sometime in October.
A main road in Inuvik, N.W.T., is closed and water is shut off for part of the town after a utilidor leak.
Immigration Minister Lena Diab sparred with her Conservative critic at a tense House of Commons committee meeting Thursday as the two disagreed on everything from immigration levels and deporting non-citizen criminals to what kind of salad they prefer.
A report by the City of Calgary presented to councillors says blanket rezoning has so far required only "minimal" upgrades to infrastructure.
Changes are coming to residential recycling in Toronto starting in the new year, two councillors announced on Thursday.
Before a bitumen pipeline from Alberta to British Columbia’s northwest coast can be built, there's another box that needs to be checked: a massive investment in carbon capture and storage in central Alberta.
Jeremy Tunraluk, president of Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. (NTI), is on leave from his position after he was charged with assault.
The head of Canada's Leaders' Debates Commission says the independent body should stop organizing post-debate news conferences and will make changes to how it decides what leaders to invite after this spring's leadership debate was surrounded by controversy.
The Alberta Health Services CEO who took over after a controversial firing in January is now himself off the job.
Standing inside her non-profit managed rental unit in central Windsor, Ont., Sue Pare points to a crack in her kitchen floor she can’t get fixed.
Five people were sent to hospital, including one person with life-threatening injuries, after a fire broke out at a fraternity house near Western University prompting a police investigation.
A rusting and derelict ship that’s been looming large over the waterfront in Springdale for years will soon be removed and disposed of by the federal government.
Greater Sudbury taxpayers will be paying 3.9 per cent more in property taxes in 2026.