When donating items to charity, most people don’t expect to see their old furniture or clothing ever again.
At least, that’s what 73-year-old Bellevue resident, Beverly Heyden thought when she donated her old bedside table in 2007.
“I didn’t think there was room for it,” said Heyden, who gave the nightstand to Hopelink because she didn’t have room for it in her new guest bedroom.
But Heyden, a semi-retired mortgage banking professional, soon changed her mind. After shifting some of the furniture in her house, she realized she shouldn’t have donated the nightstand. She wanted it back.
Searching Craigslist and eBay, Heyden couldn’t find another solid, cherrywood Willett-brand bedside table – not until this month, three years after she had made her Hopelink donation.
She was shopping at Bellevue Goodwill on N.E. 20th Street a few weeks ago when she saw it – scratched and scuffed, not as nice as her old one, but still – a familiar-looking nightstand.
“Another lady was looking it over, but couldn’t make up her mind,” Heyden said.
When Heyden went back to see if the nightstand had been purchased the next day, she was pleasantly surprised to see it was still in the store. She bought it and took it home.
Upon removing the two small drawers to clean out the nightstand, Heyden saw something lodged inside – a piece of paper.
When she smoothed out the paper so she could read it, she realized this nightstand wasn’t just a look-alike. The paper was a letter from her nephew, dated 1985.
It had taken four years; at least one, possibly several, other owners and countless searching online, but Heyden’s nightstand had come back to her.
Originally bought for $100 in 1968 as part of a full bedroom set, Heyden paid only $16 the second time.
She was so amazed by what had happened, Heyden emailed all her nieces and nephews to tell them about it. Her nephew, the author of the letter, responded saying, what are the chances of something like this happening?
“It certainly is very unusual,” said Heyden, who called the Bellevue Reporter newspaper to share her story. “I’ve never had anything this unusual happen to me before.”
