A Castlegar woman says she’s relieved a painting she had mistakenly given away to a thrift store last winter has been returned to her.
“I got a phone call from Sue, who was a volunteer at the Under A Penny store,” says Darleen Van Sickle. “She said ‘I think I might have your painting’.
“I just about cried. I mean I had no idea. I would never have got rid of it if I knew it was my son’s.”
Van Sickle’s story was told in the Castlegar News last week, after she posted a request to Facebook earlier this month asking if anyone who might have picked up the picture could return it to her.
The painting actually belonged to her son, who got it from an ex-girlfriend. Van Sickle only found out it belonged to her son months after she had given it away.
It turns out, the painting was never far away. But it was almost lost for good.
“Sue said she really liked it and had it in storage,” says Van Sickle. “But then she was going to put it in a garage sale that she was having this weekend.
“It’s good we got it back before she had the sale.”
The painting is now safe and sound back at Van Sickle’s Robson home. She says her son will happily reclaim it next time he comes for a visit.
“He was just thrilled,” she says. “He said it was amazing we had tracked it down and had gone to the effort of tracking it down.”