The handbag included a letter from a love-smitten teen asking her to prom.
An 82-year-old woman was stunned when she was reunited with a purse she'd lost years ago — 65, to be exact.
Crews were in the process of demolishing Jeffersonville High School in Indiana when they stumbled upon the find in January. Inside, they discovered Martha Ina Ingham's ID. So they turned to social media to track her down in the hopes of reuniting her with her handbag.
"Lost and Found Alert: Martha Ina Ingham's handbag from 1954 has been found in the demolition," Greater Clark County Schools posted on Facebook. "We would love to return it to her or her family!"
Social media delivered. A relative saw the post and reached out to Ingham, who goes by Marty, 1,000 miles away in Florida.
She was recently reunited with the purse, which was like a time capsule.
"It brings back a lot of memories and a lot of people I haven't heard of in a long time," Marty told Inside Edition. "What a good time we had in high school."
Inside she found a track meet ribbon, lipstick and a Juicy Fruit gum wrapper, minus the gum.
The greatest discovery, however, was a letter from a love-smitten teenager asking Marty to the junior prom.
"Dear Marty, I've heard that Paul has asked you to go to prom with him," the letter reads. "If he hasn't, I would like very much to take you."
Alas, Marty turned him down.
"Really interesting to me," she said of the discovery. "Things about my life that I'd forgotten about."
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