Couple finds old family’s treasure in their basement — only for them to serendipitously buy it back at yard sale
A ceiling renovation uncovered a decades-old sign, two whiskey bottles, and something that reconnected a family with their past.
A Staten Island couple thought they were just renovating their basement; instead, they uncovered a family’s long-lost history. During a home project in Annadale, Norma and Jason Callahan discovered a hidden bundle tucked inside their ceiling. "Jason was taking the ceiling down and he found a large metal sign that had a last name on it, and two old vintage whiskey bottles. He also found a wrapped up newspaper," Norma told Silive.com.
They shared the find in a neighborhood Facebook group, hoping to trace the items back to the family they belonged to and return them. However, after no one came forward, the couple stored the keepsakes away and eventually forgot about them. Six years passed before fate — and a yard sale — brought the story full circle. As the Callahans prepared to move this August, the old sign resurfaced among the items they planned to sell. Norma didn’t know it would soon reunite with its original owners. "A whole bunch of people came out of their car," she recalled. "They looked around and then this one woman comes up to me and she says, 'My family used to live here.'"
That woman was Debbie Falcone of Eltingville, who had spotted the yard sale listing and recognized the address from her childhood. When she mentioned her family name, Norma immediately realized the connection. She called her husband and pulled out the sign that had been hidden away for years. "They remembered the sign but they didn’t remember where it came from," Norma said, "They asked if they could give me anything for it. I was like, 'No, it’s yours. It has your name on it. It belongs to you. I’m glad it’s with the rightful owners.'"
Falcone and her sisters, who had visited the house as children decades ago, took photos in front of it and shared memories of their cousin Walter, whose father once worked at a Brooklyn shipyard. The sign, they later learned, had come from that very shipyard and served as the family’s address plaque for years. "His family did not bury the sign. He assumes it was done by the person who bought the house from my aunt in 1990," Falcone said.
The sign held a family’s story long after they had left the house, and a 2021 study by Elise van den Hoven and colleagues helps explain why it felt so powerful. Their research on "possessions and memories" found that physical objects often act as anchors for our past — what they call memory cues. These possessions store parts of those experiences through touch, wear, and time. Even when they’re lost or forgotten, those connections can resurface the moment the object is found again.
After reconnecting, the two families exchanged contact information and promised to stay in touch to piece together the full history. Falcone has since kept the sign safe and plans to return it to her cousin, now living elsewhere. Norma shared that the moment was more than just about returning an old sign. "Old timers that lived in Annadale would remember the sign," she said. "It was meant to be. All of us were, like, amazed."
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