An Heirloom at Pig Pen Pond

Though the story began more than a century ago, our improbable chapter unfolded just this past autumn. My sister Teresa messaged: “Not sure if this is legit. What do you think? It sounds mysterious!” She attached an audio file of a voicemail left on her telephone land line.

“You still have a land line?” I asked. “It’s connected to our alarm system. We seldom check for messages but just happened to today.” The message was brief and sincere. “This is Chris Burk. I’m trying to get in touch with Teresa Gionis or her brother Nick Guevara. My daughter stumbled across a family heirloom and we’re trying to return it to you folks. Hopefully this is a good number. Please call. We’d really love to talk to you.” Unsure what to think, I delayed responding.

The Heirloom

Chris answered his cell a day or two later. “I’ve been trying to contact your family for so long! I can’t tell you how exited I am to talk to you!” The story Chris related was, frankly, unbelievable. His family was walking around a pond on the University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC) campus. It had been a dry summer, and Chris’s daughter Emily spied something thin, grayish, and metallic protruding from the mud of the receding pond. “It looks like an old soda can pull tab,” Chris told her.  Emily was convinced otherwise, and asked for help to reach it. “It was a 1923 West Point class ring with your grandfather’s name inscribed!” Chris eagerly told me.

Santiago G. Guevara, West Point Cadet

Our grandfather Santiago Guevara (1899-1996) was born in relative poverty in the Philippines, then an American protectorate. In 1908, Congress authorized an annual appointment to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point to one Filipino national, a law which remains in effect today. Santiago was chosen for that honor in 1919, and it drastically changed the trajectory of his life. He proudly remained connected to West Point, returning often for reunions.  Every March 16, the Academy celebrates Founders Day throughout the world. Santiago addressed a 1963 gathering. “In 1924 in Manila I delivered the youngest graduate speech. I never dreamt then that thirty-nine years later, here in Tapei, I would have the honor of delivering the oldest graduate remarks.”

Meet Up Plans

“Santiago did not share much about his wartime experiences,” I told Chris, “but we do know that his West Point class ring was confiscated by Japanese soldiers at the surrender of Bataan in April 1942.” What are the odds that eighty-two years later that ring would turn up in a pond in Maryland?

Chris expressed his desire to meet us in person to return the ring. “At Santiago’s gravesite at Arlington Cemetery to honor him,” he requested, “if you don’t think it too weird to ask.”

Ring Photos

After our call, Chris sent photos of a tarnished 1923 West Point class ring with a red stone. I did not remember Santiago ever wearing a class ring, but Teresa did, even remembering our grandmother owning a smaller West Point “sweetheart ring.” A family photo shows Santiago in the pre-war Philippines, his ring boasting a dark stone. Two taken post-war confirmed that Santiago wore a similarly large ring, possibly a replacement class ring. Close-ups were grainy, but the latter stone appeared light or clear in color. This led me to think that Emily had found the Bataan ring; that is, if it was Santiago’s ring at all.

“Chris said it was inscribed, didn’t he? Ask him to send you a photo of the inscription,” Teresa suggested.

“I don’t want him to think I still don’t believe him,” I replied.

“It’s a logical request,” she insisted, “I don’t think he will take offense.” He did not.  Chris soon sent three photos. Inconceivably, and yet undeniably, etched within was our grandfather’s name.

Arlington Cemetery

It was a sunny, breezy, crisp November afternoon when Teresa and her husband Michael drove my wife Jean and me to Arlington Cemetery. After introductions, a short stroll to the gravesite, and a brief prayer, Emily presented us with the surprisingly heavy ring. We chatted amiably for a while, joking that her dad could have suggested we meet under a poorly lit bridge at midnight to add to the drama. We parted as family, each promising to share the results of further inquiries into the mystery.

UMBC Grad

When Teresa learned the pond was located at UMBC, she immediately thought of our recent alumnus nephew. Did he accidentally lose his great-grandfather’s West Point ring in a campus pond? “What’s West Point?” was his reply, unwittingly answering the question. “Was it Pig Pen Pond? I have a photo of me jumping into that pond if you want to see it!”

“Unless you were wearing the ring at the time,” Teresa quipped, “that won’t be necessary.”

Pig Pen Pond

Chris, a civil engineer and land surveyor, confirmed it was indeed Pig Pen Pond, located on the southern edge of the UMBC campus in Catonsville. The university purchased adjacent farmland in the late 1980s for a research and technology center, setting aside the pond and its surrounding acreage to serve as a living environmental education lab.  A boardwalk now bridges a natural stream valley from the main campus, opening to the edge of the pond on its way to the research buildings. “The pond seems to be fed by underground seeps. I didn’t notice any man-made inlet or discharge,” Chris observed. “You can still see there’s an embankment, probably where the farmers bermed up the water to bathe their pigs.”

“I pulled some of the subdivision plats for the research center,” Chris continued, “and looked through a series of Google Earth photos to ascertain when the boardwalk was constructed,” seemingly about 2008, before which public access was more limited.

Further Inquiries

In the meantime, Chris and his family investigated the identity and experiences of Santiago, searching online directories, genealogy sites, and social networks for potential living relatives. He reached out unsuccessfully to both West Point and Arlington Cemetery for contact information, and was debating using broadcast media to publicize their quest when the number he found for Teresa finally bore fruit.

Santiago and his wife Carmen had three children and sixteen grandchildren, nearly all of whom regularly visited their Washington, D.C. apartment. Carmen outlived her husband and both sons, and it’s possible – if it was the replacement ring that was found – that Carmen gave it to a child or grandchild between Santiago’s death in 1996 and her own in 2009.

Teresa had the ring cleaned and assessed, 10K gold with a red glass stone. She then contacted our cousin, who in 2016 served as executor for her late mother, our aunt. Her estate did not possess such a ring. I called a cousin from the other branch, the logical heir, being the oldest male grandchild and a former Army officer. He neither remembered nor inherited a West Point ring, though he did offer an intriguing scenario: A descendant of the Japanese officer that ended up with the Bataan ring, wanting to return it to the rightful family, sent it to the State Department in Washington D.C. From there to a government surplus sale to a pond forty miles away is at least plausible.

Serendipitous Events

The twin investigations have included a few unexpected sub-stories and coincidences. Chris has a nephew stationed in Arlington with “The Old Guard,” the U.S. Army ceremonial and presidential escort unit, a young man we were privileged to meet at the cemetery in November.  In addition, Chris unexpectedly engaged in a conversation halfway across the country with a West Point grad who happened to have been present at a 2022 dinner in Virginia honoring Santiago and seven other Filipino World War II veterans, an event Teresa and I also attended. “Nick, there’s something magical going on here!” he wrote.

Teresa agreed, reflecting that “so much of it feels serendipitous.” What if Santiago hadn’t had his name inscribed? What if the water level at the pond had been normal? What if Emily hadn’t been so sure it wasn’t an old soda can pull tab? What if Teresa hadn’t had a land line? What if the family that found it hadn’t been so persistent?

No living relative has been able to satisfactorily resolve how a decades-old heirloom ended up in a Maryland pond, nor adequately grasp the unlikely series of circumstances that led to its discovery and return. Heavenly forces surely guided the latter, using a lovely and honorable young family as its vessel, a family now enduringly linked to ours. The heirloom they stumbled across, and the story of how it found its way back to us, will continue to connect, amaze, and serve as a symbol of the sacrifices and love of those who came before us. Maybe the story doesn’t even end here. If not, we can’t wait to see what happens next.