When she arrived home Tuesday afternoon from the sale, she opened the box, she said, because it appeared it had been opened before. That’s when she said cash started falling out — $100, $50 and $20 bills totaling $1,400.
She figures the deceased woman may have used the box to hide money in a drawer.
VanArsdale, however, said she never considered keeping the money.
“Oh no, I wouldn’t do that,” she said. “I’m a Christian. We don’t do things like that. Hopefully, we don’t anyway. Too many good things come our way.”
When she returned to the estate sale, she met the man in charge and told him something was wrong with the box of hosiery she bought. They went into a bathroom, out of sight from the customers, and she showed him the money.
“He was quite happy,” she said.
Her son, David VanArsdale, said he wasn’t surprised his mother returned the $1,400 she found.
“Absolutely not,” said VanArsdale, the city’s public safety director. “She’s a good Christian lady. She always does the right thing.”
But later in the day, when he went to pick up some other items she had bought at the sale, he saw more boxes of hosiery for sale.
He jokingly said: “I’ll take all these.”
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