By Kevin Spradlin
PeeDeePost.com
The Post published an article at 12:37 p.m. Tuesday about a Richmond County woman who was searching for the rightful owner of a family Bible originally pulled from a car truck seven years ago.
By 1:50 p.m. — a mere 73 minutes later — the owner was found some 450 miles away in South Bloomfield, Ohio. It’s a digital media effort that might not have been possible only seven years ago.
Shortly before 2 p.m., Rockingham resident Pat Snuggs called the Post.
“That is my daughter,” Snuggs said after being read a part of the original article. “Yes, yes that’s them.”
“Is this not amazing,” asked Lisa Crowley, who lives in between Hamlet and Rockingham and was the one who contacted the Post about trying to locate the family of Elizabeth Ann Smith and Edward Howard Bullard. The Rockingham couple had married in Concord on May 29, 1997, and had been given a Bible by a group of Rockingham merchants.
In the Bible was an extensive family history as well as a newspaper clipping of the couple’s double-ring wedding ceremony.
“Thanks to everyone for all of the work in trying to find me,” Hopper posted on the Post’s Facebook page. “I would really love to have the Bible back. It does contain a lot of family history.”
At 12:38 p.m., the article was linked to the Post’s Facebook page. Twenty-six shares and 15 likes later, Elizabeth Ann Smith, now Elizabeth Hopper, was located in Ohio.
“I feel like I’ve won a million dollars just by finding them,” said Crowley, who said she plans to meet with Hopper’s mother in Rockingham on Thursday to begin the Bible’s journey to Ohio. Crowley said there is, of course, no storage fee and she’s simply happy that the Bible can be returned.