VANCOUVER — In 1949, Harry S Truman was president, gas cost 17 cents a gallon, televisions were just becoming popular and Donald Milford Townsend lost his wallet in Burbank, Calif.
The brown leather wallet turned up 63 years later in Whistler, B.C., in the hidden drawer of a cabinet that came into the hands of Lorna Van Straaten, director of Whistler Community Services Society. The cabinet was donated this winter to the organization's non-profit thrift store that recycles and sells home and building materials.
The wallet's contents are frozen in 1949, with sepia-tinted family photos, cardboard credit cards, a traffic ticket for just a dollar, and a California driver licence with a thumbprint instead of a headshot. Van Straaten managed to connect with Townsend's remaining family through her blog. Within days of posting about the mystery wallet, a cousin got in touch. Van Straaten mailed it to the cousin in the U.S., who then passed it on to Townsend's adult children.
The cabinet had belonged to a woman named Eileen Whiter who brought it to Whistler in 1985, but had owned it since 1963, receiving it as a gift from a friend. It's not known how or when the cabinet left California. Whiter used it to store her children's toys before passing it on to yet another owner, who eventually donated it to the thrift store, according to Van Straaten. When store staff heard something rattling around inside the black painted cabinet, they pried it open.
The contents of the wallet painted a portrait of Townsend: Born in 1914, father to twin girls and a son, a blood donor, union member, an electrician and, according to the State of California, a maker of illegal left-hand turns. He died in 2005 at age 91.
His son, Dale, who was six years old when the wallet was lost, said he had no memory of the cabinet and was shocked when it appeared.
"I couldn't believe it," said Townsend, now 70, from his home in Manhattan Beach, Calif.
"It's added so much to our lives, to have my dad come back into it. We've had wonderful stories to tell our friends and family."
But he wasn't surprised the wallet was tucked away.
"He did hide things. When we sold (my parents' house) in 2007, he had hidden under a dresser several hundred dollars of silver dollar coins in a bag."
Dale said his father's wallet "was a filing cabinet full of stuff."
"He had everything in there, from his pay stubs to pictures of us." And it was all returned intact, right down to $2.50 in change.
Townsend's grandson Gregg, a pastor in Erie County, Pa., said his grandfather would have been pleased to see the wallet returned. Gregg lived with his grandparents during college and remembers Townsend as generous, hardworking and principled; a man who — Gregg wasn't surprised to learn — fought that $1 traffic ticket in court. And after coming of age during the Depression, he was very careful with his possessions.
"He was not a guy who would lose money," Gregg said.
Whistler's Van Straaten said she and her staff had found lost items before, "but nothing that important to a family."
"I got a message on the phone from the daughter saying, 'I can't believe you found my daddy's wallet!' "
Though the cabinet had been sold by the time Townsend's children were notified about the wallet, the buyer agreed to return it so Dale could purchase it and have it shipped to his summer home in Pennsylvania. Once it arrives, he plans to place the wallet back in the secret drawer, where it belongs.
The brown leather wallet turned up 63 years later in Whistler, B.C., in the hidden drawer of a cabinet that came into the hands of Lorna Van Straaten, director of Whistler Community Services Society. The cabinet was donated this winter to the organization's non-profit thrift store that recycles and sells home and building materials.
The wallet's contents are frozen in 1949, with sepia-tinted family photos, cardboard credit cards, a traffic ticket for just a dollar, and a California driver licence with a thumbprint instead of a headshot. Van Straaten managed to connect with Townsend's remaining family through her blog. Within days of posting about the mystery wallet, a cousin got in touch. Van Straaten mailed it to the cousin in the U.S., who then passed it on to Townsend's adult children.
The cabinet had belonged to a woman named Eileen Whiter who brought it to Whistler in 1985, but had owned it since 1963, receiving it as a gift from a friend. It's not known how or when the cabinet left California. Whiter used it to store her children's toys before passing it on to yet another owner, who eventually donated it to the thrift store, according to Van Straaten. When store staff heard something rattling around inside the black painted cabinet, they pried it open.
The contents of the wallet painted a portrait of Townsend: Born in 1914, father to twin girls and a son, a blood donor, union member, an electrician and, according to the State of California, a maker of illegal left-hand turns. He died in 2005 at age 91.
His son, Dale, who was six years old when the wallet was lost, said he had no memory of the cabinet and was shocked when it appeared.
"I couldn't believe it," said Townsend, now 70, from his home in Manhattan Beach, Calif.
"It's added so much to our lives, to have my dad come back into it. We've had wonderful stories to tell our friends and family."
But he wasn't surprised the wallet was tucked away.
"He did hide things. When we sold (my parents' house) in 2007, he had hidden under a dresser several hundred dollars of silver dollar coins in a bag."
Dale said his father's wallet "was a filing cabinet full of stuff."
"He had everything in there, from his pay stubs to pictures of us." And it was all returned intact, right down to $2.50 in change.
Townsend's grandson Gregg, a pastor in Erie County, Pa., said his grandfather would have been pleased to see the wallet returned. Gregg lived with his grandparents during college and remembers Townsend as generous, hardworking and principled; a man who — Gregg wasn't surprised to learn — fought that $1 traffic ticket in court. And after coming of age during the Depression, he was very careful with his possessions.
"He was not a guy who would lose money," Gregg said.
Whistler's Van Straaten said she and her staff had found lost items before, "but nothing that important to a family."
"I got a message on the phone from the daughter saying, 'I can't believe you found my daddy's wallet!' "
Though the cabinet had been sold by the time Townsend's children were notified about the wallet, the buyer agreed to return it so Dale could purchase it and have it shipped to his summer home in Pennsylvania. Once it arrives, he plans to place the wallet back in the secret drawer, where it belongs.