Fourteen years ago in 2009, Mike Kroening and his family were at a hangout with his neighbors at Swimmers Island near their home on the Turtle Flambeau Flowage close to Mercer, Wisconsin. As they were playing, Mike threw one of the kids into the water and, according to Mike in a statement to WJFW-TV, “as I threw him, he grabbed my hand and pulled my platinum wedding band off, and it was lost. We got diving masks and we looked for the wedding band for many hours and days but couldn’t find it.” Despite the effort, Mike and his wife Tracy Kroening eventually gave up, with Tracy buying a replacement ring. Thinking little of it, the family continued to visit Swimmer’s Island, although never found the ring on its shores. 

However, in a recent Facebook post, the Turtle Flambeau Flowage and Trude Lake Association said that an area visitor had found and returned the ring, and included an image. Although a bit stained from being at the bottom of a lake for over a decade, Kroening recognized the object immediately, and contacted Bill Stewart, the owner of the Facebook page. Just as surprised as Mike Kroening was at discovering the ring, Stewart was equally as shocked, saying “what just blew me away, was within a half an hour, I had a message from Mike. First of all, I was surprised we found anyone, and second of all, I was surprised it came so quickly.”

Even though Kroening was excited to see the ring, Stewart still had to make sure that it belonged to the correct person, so, as advertised in the Facebook post, he asked Kroening what the engraving was on the inside of the ring. As stated by Tracy Kroening, the inside of the ring said “It’s your love,” the name of the couple’s wedding song, along with the date of the wedding. When Mike Kroening relayed the information to Stewart, he was close except for the date wasn’t correct, which was perplexing until Stewart asked if there was another possible date. It turned out that the Kroenings were married twice, once in the U.S. and the other time in Canada, the second date of which turned out to be correct. The same night after the message, Kroening went to pick up his lost wedding band at Stewart’s home. Generally, Kroening was just grateful to even have the ring, saying it was “like a needle in a haystack or winning the lottery, or something along those lines, but I haven’t won the lottery yet.”