Owner Reunited With Lost Bag Filled With Family Photos

MATTITUCK, NY — It was the happiest of endings for a woman who thought she'd never see a Tiffany bag filled with precious family photos again after they flew out the back window of her Jeep

Cutchogue resident Beth Siar said she was driving on Main Rd. in Mattituck on May 7 at around 4 p.m. when the signature blue shopping bag "flew out of the back of an older Jeep Cherokee," in front of her, right in front of Mattituck High School.

She pulled over to gather the photographs but by the time she'd collected them, the Jeep was gone, Siar said.

The bag, she said, was filled with about 50 family photographs from years' past. Her children, she said, had not seen the old-style prints, from days before photography went digital and images could be saved forever on social media.

Debbie Dellis-Quinn was shocked and delighted to see a post on Patch about her lost photos — and she reached out to contact Siar immediately.

"Unbelievable," she wrote to Siar. "As we headed east on Main Road another driver stopped our car and told us a woman picked up a bag that flew out of our car as our Jeep's hatch opened. We went back but couldn’t find anyone and tried to reflect on what may have been lost, to no avail."

She added: "This is so incredibly sweet of you to reach out like this on Patch. As I was going through my email and saw the photos of my family on North Fork Patch, I was awestruck."

Dellis-Quinn explained to Siar why she'd had the photos gathered in the bag: "Knowing we were going to shelter-in-place for a while, I had gathered those family photos to be scanned and then mailed to relatives as a pandemic project. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you!"

She signed the message "ever grateful."

In an interview with Patch, Dellis-Quinn said she was touched by Siar's kindness and efforts to try and locate her.

"I’m forever grateful to Beth for being a good neighbor and going the extra mile to find the owner of these irreplaceable photos. In particular, I am impressed that she shared the value of family photo memories and an old photo format with her children. In these times where so many sad stories are happening around us, Beth’s kind gesture in getting these photos back to their rightful owner is a tribute to the human spirit."

On a lighter note, Dellis-Quinn said a good majority of the photos were supposed to be sent in the mail to her ex-husband.

"We’re both happily remarried to others for many years and get along now very well. One thing that we always shared was a common sense of humor. So when I put together some old photos to send to him, I added two really bad ones of him in his bathrobe — just for a laugh. My ex has always taken pride in presenting himself as meticulously groomed and extremely well-dressed. Therefore, the irony is who would have imagined these two disheveled photos would appear on North Fork Patch!"

Siar explained why she took the time to post a photo of the bag and the snapshots on Facebook, in the hopes of finding the person who'd lost them.

"Unlike today's photos, once they're thrown away, they are actually gone," Siar said. "I had forgotten what that's like until I saw them. The memories — there's no Facebook or Alexa to remind us of that memory, or that person. Once those photos fell out that window, they were totally gone."

When she received the note from Dellis-Quinn, Siar exclaimed happily, "Success!"