‘The wallet that came home’: High school renovation uncovers wallet lost in 1972

Digital Content Editor

Anchor/Reporter

LOWELL, Mass. —

A discovery at a high school in Massachusetts brought back a piece of a woman’s life that was lost over 50 years ago.

In 1972, Kathleen Regan, a librarian at Lowell High School, lost her wallet, which inside held pictures of her three children and four great-nieces.

Regan, a Lowell High School alumna, died in 2003 and never saw her wallet again.

However, in July 2026, during renovations at Lowell High, a construction worker came across the wallet and initiated a search, along with another construction worker, for the owner.

“The two earnest construction workers began the search for the owner of the wallet. One of Kathleen’s grandchildren was contacted via Facebook and received the incredible news! ‘We think we have found a wallet belonging to your family,'” wrote Regan’s children, Kathy and Joe, in a story detailing the wallet’s journey. “The wallet itself was old and worn, but its real value was never in the leather or anything it might have contained. Its value was in the memories. The photographs. The faces. The family life captured in small images more than fifty years ago.”

Regan’s youngest granddaughter, Angie Regan, now carries the wallet and will carry it as her “something old” in her upcoming wedding.

“I just had a really strong feeling of my mom being present. I just had a feeling she was around again,” Kathy Regan said. “That’s what really touched me. That’s what she carried in here; that’s what meant the most to her: her children and her great-nieces’ pictures were in there too.”

It’s like a gift from the past from this family matriarch and librarian, who always loved a good story and a happy ending.

You can read the full story written by Kathy and Joe Regan on the wallet’s journey here.