By Melanie Petrucci, Senior Community Reporter
Shrewsbury – Andrew Phillips grew up in Shrewsbury and graduated in 1950 from Shrewsbury High School. His widow Eleanor and daughter Patti speculated that he must not have had his class ring for very long when he lost it because they never knew about the ring much less the fact that it had been lost.
Years later, the ring was found – in Lake Quinsigamond by diver Michael Brauer. Through a process of elimination, it was determined to have belonged to someone with the initials A. P. from the SHS class of 1950. Andrew Philips is the only graduate from the school in that year with those initials.
Brauer, who is from Connecticut, regularly scuba dives in Lake Quinsigamond. Last July he happened to find the ring in a cove near the police boat dock on South Quinsigamond Avenue.
“I’ve been scuba diving and metal detecting in Lake Quinsigamond for nearly 30 years and it’s always been my focus to find sites to recover old things- the older the better,” Brauer said.
Brauer reached out to an acquaintance, local Shrewsbury historian Michael Perna, to try to identify the owner. Perna said that the archaeology of the area indicates that this site was likely a summer lakeside gathering place for teenagers and boaters.
“I asked Shrewsbury Selectman (and Genealogist) Moira Miller to help, and through diligent genealogical research she found the name of the owner,” Perna said.
“Mike found a SHS Class of 1950 50th reunion booklet that listed an Andrew Phillips who was deceased at the time of the reunion. He asked if I could help locate any descendants so he could return the ring to the family,” Miller said.
“I also checked the 1950 Shrewsbury High yearbook and an Andrew Phillips was listed on the basketball team there,” she added. “Through an obituary, I was able to identify possible living descendants.”
Initial efforts to connect with the family were unsuccessful but then an article in the Jan. 8, 2019 issue of the Community Advocate caught the attention of friends who then got in touch with the family who, as it turned out, are still in the area.
Phillips was married to Eleanor Gaucher (who grew up right around the corner,) and they had five children: Paula, Peter, Patti, Jimmy and Karen.
Eleanor now lives in Auburn, as do her children Jimmy and Patti; Karen and Peter live close by. Paula lives in Bristol, Conn.
Phillips was born in Worcester, Mass on July 30, 1932. After high school graduation, he joined the U.S. Navy and served in the Korean conflict. He then studied at Worcester Junior College and then Northeastern University.
A civil engineer by profession, he was the Town Engineer in Shrewsbury and served on the town Conservation Commission. He then went to work as a civil engineer with the commonwealth’s Department of Public Works.
In 1987, at the age of 54, he passed away having suffered for five years with non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma.
The ring has been successfully returned to the family and they couldn’t be more thrilled.
“It’s amazing and unbelievable,” Eleanor, who is now 83, said of having the ring returned to the family.
“It’s so special because we lost him when he was so young so we don’t really have that much of him,” his daughter Patti added. “It’s like having a piece of him back.”