In the photo: Martha Shepherd with ID she had stolen on Vancouver Island in 1979. Andrea Klassen photo/KTW
When Martha Shepherd’s phone rang last week and the man on the other end of the line identified himself as a Vancouver Island police officer, she assumed the worst.
“You automatically think it’s bad news,” she said.
“It seems that’s all that is on the news nowadays.”
The officer was a sergeant from the RCMP detachment in Ucluelet — a place Shepherd hadn’t been in 35 years, when it was known as Long Beach.
Then, the officer asked Shepherd if she’d lost a purse.
“I said yes and he asked when,” she said.
“I said, ‘I can’t remember, but it was at Long Beach.’
“He said they were drying it out and they’d be sending a parcel.”
On a camping trip to Long Beach in 1979, Shepherd’s car was broken into and her purse stolen. She was missing her wallet and about $100 in cash.
“I asked him, ‘I don’t suppose there was $100 in there?’” she said.
There wasn’t. But, the people of the community pitched in and sent $100 in a package alongside all of Shepherd’s old IDs.
Also included were a smattering of Ucluelet souvenirs — a blanket from the Ucluelet First Nation, bumper stickers, home-made canned salmon, magnets and cards signed by community members.
It turns out a highways worker cleaning a ditch earlier this year was cleaning a ditch in Ucluelet and happened upon Shepherd’s wallet.
Shepherd said she hasn’t been back to Ucluelet since her purse was stolen and, until last week, she had no intention of ever returning.
“No, but now I want to go,” she said.
“I’d like to in the summertime.”
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