Her Wallet Was Stolen in College-43 Years Later, a Stranger Reached Out

A woman who had her wallet stolen as a student thought she would never see it again, but then came the most unexpected message-more than four decades later.

While studying at Eastern Washington University in 1983, a woman who wishes to be identified by her Reddit username, SocietyDisastrous787, was devastated to find that her wallet had been stolen. The woman, now 61, recalls being in the science building at the time, telling Newsweek that she was "only gone a few minutes" and did not think twice about leaving her belongings unattended while she used the restroom.

Once she returned to her desk, she found her backpack open and the wallet gone.

"EWU was the kind of place where no one locked their car doors while in class," u/SocietyDisastrous787 said. "It never occurred to me not to leave my wallet in the study room in the science building while I slipped out to the bathroom.

"I searched the room for it, thinking it had somehow fallen out, because of course no one would steal anything, that was unthinkable. Stolen or lost, it really was gone and it’s kind of a knot of unhappiness in your stomach when something like that happens."

As she was only 18 years old at the time, u/SocietyDisastrous787 does not believe there was much money in the wallet, and she did not have any credit cards back then. Most importantly, she had to replace the ID cards, which was "annoying," but not of major concern. She continued looking for the wallet over the following weeks just in case it showed up.

Needless to say, she never expected to see that wallet or its contents ever again. But 43 years later, u/SocietyDisastrous787 received a message request on Facebook that changed everything.

Upon accepting the request, she was stunned to learn that a city groundskeeper found it while mowing the grass all these decades later. The message included a picture showing the wallet that she had not seen for 43 years, with her ID cards still intact. All this time, she thought it was gone forever and had not thought of the wallet whatsoever.

"The whole thing is so odd that I still laugh when I see the picture. That the two ID cards survived and that the wallet was there all this time is unbelievable," she told Newsweek.

The person who found it asked u/SocietyDisastrous787 if she wanted the wallet returned to her, but she did not see any need. Indeed, what would she do with a 43-year-old leather wallet and out-of-date cards?

"The image is enough to remind me of my school years and some of the people I knew back then. And the memory nudge of the sideways driver's license picture has been fun," she jested.

As she simply could not believe the chances, u/SocietyDisastrous787 posted the images on the mildly interesting Reddit thread. Internet users cannot believe the discovery, generating more than 17,000 votes and over 200 comments on the post at the time of writing.

The online reaction is beyond anything u/SocietyDisastrous787 anticipated, and she loves that other social media users find the whole situation just as wild as she does.

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This story was originally published June 11, 2026 at 9:31 AM.