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Former Dayton's employee gets wallet back after nearly 50 years

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Dayton's department store in Minneapolis c. 1940
Toy department inside the Dayton's department store in Downtown Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA. Photo taken in 1940, most likely November or December.
Minnesota Historical Society | Creative Commons via Flickr

Associated Press

A former employee of the Dayton's department store in Minneapolis has her wallet back nearly 50 years after it was stolen while she was working behind the cosmetics counter.

Linda Rost's olive-green wallet was stolen from her purse in 1969, KARE-TV reported.

The wallet was recently rediscovered when the department store was undergoing renovations. Demolition worker Char Nelson discovered the wallet when ductwork came down.

"I had just swept up and made a pile, so it was just in my pile to go in the dumpster," Nelson said.

Metal on the wallet caught her attention.

"Otherwise it would have just been thrown away," she said.

Nelson connected with Rost on Facebook and returned the wallet to her.

"It was so fun to be able to give that back to you and so fulfilling to be able to find something like that," Nelson told Rost.

The wallet only contained a couple of dollars when it was stolen, Rost said. The money was gone, but the wallet did have a gas bill, a card of buttons, an old student ID, her driver's license and photos of her cousins, which she plans to return to them.

"One of my cousins said, 'I don't have any pictures of my school, my mom gave them all away,'" Rost said.