University Times

Nelson Galloway’s sleuthing skills helped him to reunite owners with some long-lost jewelry, which Galloway discovered when he was cleaning out some Falk Library filing cabinets.

Nelson Galloway knows how it feels to lose a piece of jewelry that has sentimental value.

So, when he found several rings and a pin while emptying some old filing cabinets in Falk Library, he was determined to locate their long-lost owners.

Galloway has worked at Pitt for 23 years, currently as an administrative specialist at the Health Sciences Library System (HSLS).

His job duties? In short, “If it needs done, I do it,” he said, adding that, as an assistant to HSLS director Barbara Epstein, he takes care of such varied tasks as purchasing, coordinating construction and handling maintenance and housekeeping issues around the library.

That’s how he came to be assigned to conduct a little spring cleaning on the file cabinets that needed to be moved from their spot near what at one time had been the administrative offices.

With a colleague, he began sorting through the files. A few documents pertained to Falk Library’s history, but most were mundane office papers: old contracts; purchase orders, and the like. “We threw almost everything away,” he said.

However, among the papers was a bag of keys. And among the keys were several pieces of jewelry that he said either had been found in the library or brought to the library’s main desk — exactly how long ago, he couldn’t say for sure.

When the items went unclaimed, they apparently were taken to the director’s office and set aside for safekeeping.

Out of sight, out of mind, they sat in the file cabinet for decades until Galloway rediscovered them: a wedding band; a 1967 St. Francis School of Nursing pin, and two class rings — one from Sewickley High School’s class of 1971 and another from McKeesport High School’s class of 1982.

Galloway, a 1971 graduate of United Local High School in Hanoverton, Ohio, lost his own class ring many years ago. His sense of empathy motivated him to try to reunite the lost items with their owners. “I thought people would be interested in hearing that someone found their class ring,” he said.

Although Galloway is not a librarian, he admitted he is skilled in gathering information. “I always liked figuring things out,” he said.

Galloway holds little hope of ever finding the wedding band’s owner, given that it had no inscription, but names and initials on the pin and class rings made his search for their owners easier.

A call to the St. Francis nursing school’s former director prompted a search of the alumni database and produced a matching set of initials. In a matter of days the pin was mailed to its owner, who said she had lost it at Falk Library years ago.

Likewise, the Sewickley High School ring was returned after Galloway searched online for the name inscribed inside. The ring had been lost some 38 years ago by the man’s girlfriend, who had been a student at Pitt.

“He was tickled to get it back,” Galloway said, adding that the pair of young sweethearts have since become husband and wife.

The McKeesport ring presented more of a challenge. Galloway read the initials RME inside the women’s ring; when he phoned the high school’s records clerk, he was told no one with those initials was in the 1982 class. Undaunted, Galloway got a second opinion on the initials inside and decided the lettering actually was RMS. Those initials yielded one female match, who likewise was surprised and pleased to have the ring returned.

Galloway said he was happy to be able to reunite the lost pieces of jewelry with their owners. “I found the rings, looked [the owners] up and gave them back. It was very direct,” he said.

Galloway hasn’t been so lucky in finding his own class ring, which met an unconventional end.

“My pig ate it,” he said, explaining that, pigs being pigs, his family’s porcine pet snapped it up and swallowed it when it slipped from Galloway’s hand.

Although he’d watched for the ring to reappear, “It was never recovered,” he said.

—Kimberly K. Barlow