I’m not sure I ever thought about shopping at the bottom of the sea for a birthday present. But after hearing about this gift, I may need to reconsider.
Morgan Perigo was one day shy of turning 83, when a package showed up at his door. He hadn’t been expecting anything in the mail. Inside was something he hadn’t seen in 47 years: His 1965 McMaster University graduation ring. It had been missing since 1977.
The return address was from Alex Davis, who just so happened to be a professional free diver who works out of Barbados. Davis said that after a recent hurricane had passed through the area, he had spotted a spot in the ocean sand the storm had churned up.
“So, areas where it was like a beautiful sandy beach, suddenly you can see all these rocks exposed…,” Davis said. “With that sort of in mind, I was like, right, are there some areas now I want to go to where they seem like a lot of sand has been pulled out.”
Alex Davis with Morgan Perigo’s long-lost graduation ring. Photo by Davis
Davis dived with a metal detector and at first said he only found rusted nails, bottle caps and some coins. But it was then he spotted something interesting. “They were from the 70s and 80s and I started thinking wow, I’m in a zone where we’ve clearly got a lot of old stuff,” he said.
But then he said his metal detector gave off a beep that signaled gold, and Davis began digging. Sifting through layers of sand, rock and dead coral, the diver finally found what the metal detector had landed on – a gold ring with a dark red stone in the middle. Davis said the ring wasn’t corroded and snice it had a jeweler’s mark on it, it meant the ring was made of pure gold.
Once he was back on land, Davis said he used a magnifier and found the words, “McMaster University 1965,” and the initials “FMP.” “Once I saw that, I was like, ‘Okay, there’s, definitely enough information here to try and get this back to the person,” he said. “We’ve got, the school, we’ve got the graduation year, we’ve got three initials.’”
Alex Davis with Morgan Perigo’s long-lost graduation ring. Photo by Davis
Davis reached out to McMaster University and got in touch with Karen McQuigge, the director of alumni engagement. After working with the university’s reunion coordinator on finding someone with the ‘FMP’ initials, McQuigge lucked out. The initials belonged to a Frederick Morgan Perigo. “Thankfully, Morgan is a really good graduate and kept up his information with the university after all these years,” she said.
So that was the other worry that we had, 1965 is quite a while ago. Would the person still be living?”
Alive and well, Perigo had, for the most part, forgotten about the lost ring. When McQuigge contacted him, Perigo told her that he had lost the ring during a trip with his family to Barbados. His son, he said, had been knocked over by a wave and as Perigo pulled him out, the ring slipped off his finger and into the sea.
Davis couldn’t believe his luck. “So, it was like, oh my God, this story just can’t get any better. Not only did we find it after 47 years at the bottom of the sea? But also, I found it, you know, a week before his birthday.” The ring was quickly wrapped and shipped to Perigo’s home where it made its landing the day before his big day. “What a wonderful unexpected 83rd birthday present,” Perigo said.
