Sunken treasure: McMaster grad reunited with ring lost in ocean 47 years ago
Morgan Perigo ’65 never expected to see his McMaster graduation ring again after losing it in the ocean off the coast of Barbados in 1977. (Images courtesy Morgan Perigo).
To call Morgan Perigo’s 83rd birthday present unexpected is a bit of an understatement.
On the eve of his birthday, the McMaster graduate ripped open a box that had been shipped to him by FedEx. Inside was his graduation ring, which he’d lost in the ocean off the coast of Barbados 47 years earlier.
That decades-long reunion came about thanks to the keen eye of a professional freediver in Barbados and a McMaster alumni officer who managed to put the pieces of a puzzle together to get the ring back to its rightful owner.
Perigo had never expected to see the ring again after it fell into the ocean while on a trip to Barbados in 1977 with his wife and two young sons.
“One day I took my younger son and waded into the ocean. He was knocked over by a wave, so I reached to grab hold of him. He pulled on my hand and my Mac Alumni ring came off,” recalled Perigo in an email.
“We searched for it but were unsuccessful.”
The ring, which marked Perigo’s 1965 graduation from the Faculty of Science, presumably bounced around on the ocean floor for years until it was discovered by Alex Davis, a professional freediver who was operating his newly –acquired underwater metal detector.
Hoping to get the ring back to its owner, he reached out to McMaster, sharing photos of his special find.
“I found a McMaster University signet ring with three initials on the inside,” he wrote. “I found it metal detecting in Barbados this morning and suspect it’s been lost for some time.”
His email reached alumni officer Laura Escalante, who set out to solve the mystery with only two clues, both engraved on the slightly tarnished ring: the year 1965 and the initials FMP.
Her quest eventually led her to mathematics major Frederick Morgan Perigo.
Reached by email, Perigo confirmed the ring was his.
“This is unbelievable news,” he wrote back.
Escalante then got to work connecting Perigo and Davis and helping coordinate the return of the ring. She calls it one of the happiest moments of her career and says the story has touched the hearts of McMaster Alumni staff.
Perigo, now reunited with his long-lost ring, is grateful to Davis and Escalante. “What a wonderful unexpected 83rd birthday present.”
In the News: Read more about the long-lost McMaster graduation ring in The New York Times, CNN, The Washington Post, People Magazine, CBC Hamilton and The Hamilton Spectator
