- Joined
- Jul 26, 2003
Good news for Roz!
http://www.kirotv.com/news/2872709/detail.html
Skating Medals Reclaimed From Long-Forgotten Safe Deposit Box
POSTED: 6:16 am PST February 25, 2004
KENMORE, Wash. -- Former Olympic skater Rosalyn Sumners had almost overcome her regret about losing three medals from the world competition in 1983.
Now she has them back after learning someone, probably from a bank where they were on display, had stuck them in a safe deposit box with the owner listed as "unknown."
Sumners is among the lucky owners of jewelry, rare coins, family heirlooms and other valuables who were located by state officials before a two-day auction of the unclaimed contents of safe deposit boxes starting Wednesday in this Seattle suburb.
When rent goes unpaid for five years and a bank or credit union can't locate the owner, the contents are sent to the state Department of Revenue for auction -- unless the owners or heirs can be contacted in time.
The sale proceeds are used to establish accounts from which owners can file claims at any time, agency spokesman Mike Gowrylow said.
"We do find people fairly regularly, but some of it's just kind of sad," Gowrylow said. "We had a footlocker full of a soldier's things -- there were a lot of his pictures and medals, his uniform, just kind of his life history in this trunk -- and nobody could ever find any heir."
Finding Sumners, though, was a piece of cake.
The medals, two golds and a silver, were from the world figure skating championships in Helsinki, Finland, in 1983, a year before Sumners finished second at the Winter Olympics in Sarajevo, Yugoslavia (now Bosnia-Herzegovina).
A computer check quickly showed the medals were won by Sumners, who lives part of the year in Kirkland.
"I actually was surprised. I was very excited," Sumners said. "It represents my entire childhood, everything I did as a child, it represents my dreams and goals."
She said she last saw them when she let a bank in Edmonds, where she grew up, put them on display.
After some years in which the bank had changed ownership at least once, she inquired about the medals but drew a blank. Apparently no one knew or remembered that the medals had been placed in a safe deposit box with the owner listed as "unknown."
"They looked at me like they didn't even know what I was talking about," Sumners said. "It was my one world title, and that's a pretty special thing in your life, but I tried not fret over it ... and I sort of let it go."
http://www.kirotv.com/news/2872709/detail.html
Skating Medals Reclaimed From Long-Forgotten Safe Deposit Box
POSTED: 6:16 am PST February 25, 2004
KENMORE, Wash. -- Former Olympic skater Rosalyn Sumners had almost overcome her regret about losing three medals from the world competition in 1983.
Now she has them back after learning someone, probably from a bank where they were on display, had stuck them in a safe deposit box with the owner listed as "unknown."
Sumners is among the lucky owners of jewelry, rare coins, family heirlooms and other valuables who were located by state officials before a two-day auction of the unclaimed contents of safe deposit boxes starting Wednesday in this Seattle suburb.
When rent goes unpaid for five years and a bank or credit union can't locate the owner, the contents are sent to the state Department of Revenue for auction -- unless the owners or heirs can be contacted in time.
The sale proceeds are used to establish accounts from which owners can file claims at any time, agency spokesman Mike Gowrylow said.
"We do find people fairly regularly, but some of it's just kind of sad," Gowrylow said. "We had a footlocker full of a soldier's things -- there were a lot of his pictures and medals, his uniform, just kind of his life history in this trunk -- and nobody could ever find any heir."
Finding Sumners, though, was a piece of cake.
The medals, two golds and a silver, were from the world figure skating championships in Helsinki, Finland, in 1983, a year before Sumners finished second at the Winter Olympics in Sarajevo, Yugoslavia (now Bosnia-Herzegovina).
A computer check quickly showed the medals were won by Sumners, who lives part of the year in Kirkland.
"I actually was surprised. I was very excited," Sumners said. "It represents my entire childhood, everything I did as a child, it represents my dreams and goals."
She said she last saw them when she let a bank in Edmonds, where she grew up, put them on display.
After some years in which the bank had changed ownership at least once, she inquired about the medals but drew a blank. Apparently no one knew or remembered that the medals had been placed in a safe deposit box with the owner listed as "unknown."
"They looked at me like they didn't even know what I was talking about," Sumners said. "It was my one world title, and that's a pretty special thing in your life, but I tried not fret over it ... and I sort of let it go."
