York County News

03:21 PM EDT on Friday, October 29, 2004

By The Herald

Cynthia Stegall's missing purse was returned to her last week -- nearly a half-century after she lost it.

But getting the purse back isn't what surprised Stegall most.

It was where it was found.

A Rock Hill plumber spotted it while installing pipes in an underground crawl space at Highland Park Mill on Standard Street. The 108-year-old complex is being renovated into apartments for senior citizens.

The plumber, Wesley Harrison, collects old soda bottles often found at construction sites, and that's what led him to the dusty, black leather bag, nestled under a floorboard -- specked with dirt, but in good shape considering it had been missing since 1957.

"I seen the bottle and crawled over to get it," he said. "Right on the other side, I saw leather. It was right before I was fixing to come out, too."

Inside was an old, metal driver's license, a library card, a tube of lipstick, a dozen old photos -- and most importantly, a name and address, etched in handwritten black ink.

Cynthia Dawson, 620 Arch Drive.

Cynthia's last name changed when she got married, but her parents, Archie and Mary Dawson, still live at that address.

So when Mary called her daughter to tell her there were two construction workers on the front doorstep holding an old pocketbook, Cynthia didn't know quite what to think.

"I told her I hadn't lost a purse," said Stegall, 64. "She said, 'Well, they've got one here that has your name on it.'"

It was only when she laid eyes on it that the memories came flooding back.

The year was 1957, and Stegall, then 17 and a senior at Rock Hill High School, was returning home with friends one night from a Clover roller-skating rink. Her friend's car broke down on S.C. 274 near Newport, so the girls got a ride home from a local minister who happened to drive by.

They left the car on the side of the road overnight, and a towing service took it to a repair shop the next day.

At some point during that time, the purse disappeared. Stegall searched the car and even the grass where it had been parked. No luck.

She figured someone had stolen it -- perhaps a thief later that night.

Stegall never figured it out, and eventually stopped trying.

Nearly 50 years later, her original theory appears like it might be right. Cash was missing from the billfold. Stegall swears it had some that night. Also gone were a pair of glasses bought just days earlier.

"I don't think anybody's going to step forward and say, 'I did it,'" she admitted.

An even more puzzling question: How did the purse end up under the floor of an old cotton warehouse?

"Just a mystery," Stegall says.

But there's no use in wondering about it now. Stegall, who has two grown sons and four grandchildren, is just glad to have back some of her teenage possessions -- and the memories they carry.

The bright red lipstick she wore during nights out on the town.

Black and white photographs of high school friends, many she had forgotten and some who have since died.

Even a wrinkled 25-cent parking stub from the old Charlotte Coliseum, where she went for a rock concert, though she can't remember the band.

"They said they hoped it brought back some good memories, and it did," Stegall said. "Just one bad one: Mother getting so mad at me about losing my glasses. I remember that. She fussed at me."

Stegall has long since replaced her glasses, but as of Thursday, she hadn't decided where to keep the purse. A friend told her to mount it behind a glass frame and put it on a wall. Her husband, Bobby, suggested she keep it in a cedar box.

Whatever she decides, it'll be somewhere safe.

Wouldn't want to lose it again.