Yesterday, as I was dragging my Christmas tree to the curb for the Village to pick up, I was reminded of a nice story that happened seven years ago this week.
In the first week of January 2016, My husband and I had decided to take a winter hike at Helmer Nature Center in Irondequoit. It happens that Helmer is the location where the Town of Irondequoit collects Christmas trees every year for recycling. We noticed that someone had placed an ornament on top of a post near the pile of trees. Clearly, some family had left it on their tree, a kind person had noticed it and put it somewhere obvious in case the family came back looking for it.
At my husband’s suggestion, I snapped a photo of the ornament and posted it on my Facebook page. I was still writing a weekly column for the Democrat and Chronicle at the time, so the page had a lot of readership. Someone at Channel 13 saw the post and did a short piece on their newscast. That caught the attention of the Irondequoit family who had lost the ornament, the Rusters.
Turns out the photo is of (then) 22-year old Teigan Ruster, who was just a year old when it was taken. The family returned to Helmer Nature Center the next day and was thrilled to get the ornament back.
The whole story was picked by by Channel 13 reporter Matt Molloy, who actually came to interview me at the Webster Thomas High School library where I was working at the time. Click here to see his report.
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(posted 1/5/2023)
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