Florida photo album mystery solved thanks to Ballymoney Times readers: meet the owner

The search was launched after American woman Sandra Sue Dent made an appeal to Ballymoney Times readers to reunite the album with its family after it was left in a Florida hotel and it ended up in ‘lost and found’.

Thanks to the power of social media, the owner was discovered to be Nona (Connolly) Young originally from the Dervock area who also lives in Florida.

Sandra Sue, continued: “Thank you so much for helping to get this story out so we could reunite the album with the owner, Nona Young, who happens to live in the same county in Florida where I live! The album is now with Nona. Nona and I have talked extensively comparing memories, and we think we have solved the mystery of how this happened.

“Nona’s mother gave her the album when she had been back to Ireland in the early 1990’s. On the way back home to the states, she had the album in an open topped bag which was placed in the overhead bin on the flight to Tampa. When she arrived home, she was excited to show the album to her husband, but it was gone. Nona called the airline who said nothing had been turned in, so she had to forget about it.

“In the meantime the album travelled to Winter Haven, Florida, to the Howard Johnson’s hotel. We think that a passenger probably found and kept it out of curiosity. We feel that if the airline staff had found it, they would surely have turned it in. It is common for people to fly into Tampa, then travel to the attractions or sports events in Winter Haven, Florida.

"Later at the hotel, the passenger either left the photo album in the hotel room, or handed it to my husband who worked at the front desk. He knows someone handed it to him, but he can’t remember if it was a member of the hotel staff or a guest. He gave it to me.

“I thought that I should try to figure out how to find the owner, but the thought was pretty overwhelming. In the early 1990’s I was not experienced in doing research on the internet, and I thought that one day I would be able to do this. I stored it in a safe place and put it out of my mind.

“Decades and a busy career later, the album resurfaced, and I knew it was time to finally get it back to the family. It was so easy because by then I was internet savvy, and I just followed the clues I found in the album and reached out to the Dalraida School and the Ballymoney Times.

"The Times articles and Facebook posts created a lot of attention. So many friends and family members reached out to Nona that she just couldn’t believe it! Nona and I are both very thankful for the help we received to get these pictures back to the family.”