The McAleese family is anxious to find the owner of a man’s heavy gold wedding ring lost in Lake Washington last August. Young Daniel Peyton had searched methodically for the lost ring for many weeks, but ended up finding it by chance more than a month later.

It all began on a summer afternoon in August at Calkins Landing when Karen McAleese and her two sons were enjoying the Lake Washington beach. A man, along with his wife and an older man believed to be his father, were also at the beach. The man swimming in the water lost his wedding ring, much to the chagrin of his wife, who reminded her husband that she had it specially made for him. The trio left after searching for a time, but McAleese’s son Daniel, 9, a student at Island Park Elementary School, spent another hour searching for the gold ring. He could not find it. Each time the McAleese family returned to the beach over the next several weeks, Daniel would search for it, wearing goggles and skimming the lake bottom.

At the end of a very warm September, the family held a picnic on the beach with friends. Daniel and his brother, Aidan, were horsing around along the shore. When Daniel jumped into the water after a push from his brother, he stepped on something unfamiliar on the lake bottom. “I knew it wasn’t a rock,” he said. To his surprise, it was the ring he had been searching for.

Karen McAleese believes that the father of the man who lost the ring lives near the landing on Mercer Island and knows her husband Joseph from the WAC in downtown Seattle. The McAleese family owns Kells Pub in Post Alley near the Pike Place Market. The family asks that the owner call them at 275-1112 and describe the ring.