Wallet found in Eaton Center after 40 years

As a child, Vanessa Austin spent many weekends walking with her family in one of Canada's busiest malls.

Forty years ago, during one of her trips to the Eaton Center in Toronto, her mother's purse went missing. No one in the family remembers much of the incident, but years of memories came flooding back last month when a stranger from Detroit dropped off an intact pocketbook at Austin's office in Guelph.

“I couldn't believe it when I saw it,” Austin said in a phone interview. “It's like a time capsule, and I keep saying that because it's so well preserved.”

Inside the flower-patterned wallet were his mother's immigration papers, a picture of Austin as a piglet and another picture of his father, a bank card and a Toronto Public Library card.

There was also a “buy one, get one free” coupon for a Canadian Wonderland “preview passport” with every $40 order from Loblaws valid through June 16, 1984.

“I wish I could use a coupon,” Austin said with a laugh.

The Fergus, Ont., woman said she was initially shocked when the security desk at the company's headquarters notified her and her husband about the wallet.

According to Austin, the man, Andrew Medley, came to light in January when he was doing some work at the Eaton Center and found a wallet tucked between a wall and a pipe. She used the wallet information to track down Austin and tried to contact him on Facebook, but he didn't see her messages.

Determined to deliver the wallet anyway, Medley found out which company Austin worked for and visited their offices in Guelph before returning home to Detroit, he said.

“There are a lot of stories that bring people down now, right? And then when you get something like that, you know, you're reminded that there's good in the world and that people are still willing to do something for each other,” Austin said.

“The fact that he did it without expecting anything and wanted to know what the reaction was – it was very real.”

Austin told Medley he sent the video of his parents seeing the wallet for the first time in 40 years.

“At first they were just as confused as I was. And then they just tried to remember when it happened, how it happened,” he said. “When they were going through it, they were like, 'Oh my gosh, look at this.'

Austin said it's interesting to note the difference between today's wallets and those of the 1980s.

“You look through it and it's all written rather than typed. And his penmanship is also beautiful,” he says. “You just see how things have changed.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published on February 6, 2024.