After a year, senior’s lost cane returned
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ELKINS -- The kindness of a local retail worker is being celebrated this holiday season by a grateful longtime Elkins resident.
Sharon McQuain, a senior citizen, accidentally lost her cane more than a year ago, on Dec. 10, 2022.
"We went to the Living Nativity at the Baptist Church last year, and when we got home I realized I didn't have my cane," McQuain told The Inter-Mountain. "We'd stopped at several stores on the way home, so I wasn't sure where I'd left it.
"I hoped that I would find it. We went back to every store we could think of in Elkins and asked about it, but we had no luck," she said. "Nobody ever said they'd seen it."
McQuain was especially disheartened, for she had a sentimental attachment to the cane.
"It was my father's cane," she said. "It's the only thing I have of my father's, and it meant so much to me, and I hated to lose it.
"I didn't know my father when I was growing up. My parents divorced when I was very tiny. So the cane meant something to me, it was very sentimental. It was my father's cane, the only thing I had of his. That's why I was trying so hard to find it."
Nearly a year to the day after losing the cane, on Dec. 5, McQuain was surprised by a knock on her front door.
"A very nice young lady named Andy Hamrick, who works at the Dollar General store on Third Street, had noticed my cane in the lost and found at the store," she said.
"Andy said, 'Maybe we should see who that cane belongs to. It's been here a long time.' The cane had labels on it, with my name and address, but not my phone number, I forgot to include that.
"Andy took it upon herself to drive the cane out to my house, and I was overwhelmed," McQuain said.
"I had sort of resigned myself to not ever having it again, because it had been gone for so long. But when Andy brought it back to me, I was overjoyed."
McQuain went back to the store recently to thank Hamrick again and take a photo together.
"The cane had been at the store for about a year," Hamrick told The Inter-Mountain. "Often people have a number on their cane, and she just had her address on there. For the longest time I thought she would just come back in and grab it. But she never did.
"At some point recently, I looked up her address and realized it wasn't really all too far from here," Hamrick said. "So my friend and I drove down to bring it back to her.
"The wonderful thing is that she was telling me about how she used to be a teacher at the Vo-Tech. The coincidence of it all is that I'm currently getting my GED at the Vo-Tech. So it's kind of interesting the way that worked out, that the one person who forgot her cane happened to be a teacher there."
Hamrick has been working at General Dollar since July. She has lived in Elkins for about 10 years.
"I guess miracles do happen," McQuain said. "Especially at Christmas. What a great Christmas present!"