Purse lost for 9 years to be returned

SAINT JOHN, New Brunswick – It has taken nine years, but the purse Barb Mackey lost in a Wal-Mart store in Maine in 1995 is on its way back to her.

Mackey, a Saint John resident, received a call Monday from an employee of the store in Calais, Maine, asking if she had lost a purse in 1995.

“When they called me I just started laughing because I thought it was hilarious that they found it after so many years,” she said Tuesday.

The purse was turned in the day it was lost and the store tried to return it to her, but Mackey had moved a month before taking the trip and hadn’t changed her address on the documents in the purse.

The store mailed the purse to the old address but it was returned and eventually placed in a storage room at the store. The purse sat on the shelf for years until employees, on a recent cleaning spree, came across it again and decided to try to track her down.

Mackey, who was married shortly before losing the purse, said the thing she regretted losing the most was a sentimental gift from her then new husband.

“You’re going to laugh when you hear this one – it was a Mickey Mouse key chain,” she said. “It was the first thing he bought me.”