A 100 Year-Old Wedding Ring

My wedding ring with the engraving "F & A '11."

My wedding ring is 100 years old this year. I was lucky-enough to inherit my great-grandmother's wedding band shortly before Ryan and I were married.

My paternal grandfather's parents, Agnes Brownlee and Frank Odell were married on December 13, 1911 - one hundred years ago yesterday - in North Dakota. I had meant to write a blog post yesterday, on the 13th, but the day got away from me which is funny because I've been planning this blog post for almost a year. In fact, last winter when I realized my ring would be one hundred years old in 2011, I asked my mom to look up the date of my great grandparents' wedding.

When I started this blog post earlier today at school, I meant to save it as a draft and finish it later at home after I took a photo of my ring. Instead, I accidentally hit "publish" and the email-version went out to a few family members. Now I'm glad I made that little mistake because Carol, Ryan's mom, replied to the email and told me with amazement that her parents were also married on December 13th.  This is more than a small coincidence not only because they were married on the same date as my great grandparents, 36 years later, but because Ryan wears his grandfather's wedding ring.

I never knew my great grandparents but I know I am lucky to have a family ring. And I know Ryan was very close to his grandfather, "Pops," and was touched that is grandmother wanted him to have Pop's wedding band.

My great grandparents' wedding portrait