DETROIT LAKES, Minn. - A mysterious thrift store charm bracelet that piqued the interest of many throughout Becker County and far beyond is back in the hands of its long lost family. Last week the Detroit Lakes Newspapers published an article on a bracelet with 11 engraved charms that contained first and middle names on them. One of those charms had no name, but was simply a tiny photo of a baby. Helping Hands Thrift Store worker Aleisa Jopp discovered the bracelet in a box that had been donated sometime before Christmas and stuck it away in the hopes that she’d be able to locate the family she suspected couldn’t have meant to throw it away. Thanks to readers who shared the story over social media, the mystery has been solved.
“It’s me,” said Leon Korynta, a sports broadcaster in Grand Rapids, Mich. “I’m the baby on the charm.” Korynta, who is originally from Grand Forks, says the charm bracelet belonged to his grandmother, Agnes Korynta of Grafton, N.D., who passed away 15 years ago this week. The charms were the names of the first 11 of her 21 grandchildren. It’s a bracelet that the Korynta cousins don’t remember seeing for decades - until now. A teacher’s curiosity Fargo native and now Arizona teacher Jessica Richau always talks to her students about doing good in the world and about doing nice things for others. So when she saw an article her cousin in Detroit Lakes posted on Facebook last week about a mysterious charm bracelet, her mind started turning. “The first thing I noticed was that this bracelet was really similar to one my mom had with all of our names on it, except this one had way more charms,” said Richau, who became curious enough to start Googling a few of the names listed on the charms. She chose the ones with the most unique spellings. An obituary popped up for Leroy Korynta with several of those first names listed as grandchildren. “I thought, oh my gosh, they didn’t all match up, but there couldn’t be five or six of the names that matched perfectly like that if it wasn’t them,” said Richau, who immediately started contacting the family through Facebook to see if it was them. “I got a Facebook message from this teacher in Arizona,” said Dawn Korynta, one of the cousins on the charm who lives in Warren, Minn. “She said she’d seen an article about a charm bracelet and was wondering it belonged to our family.” The teacher sent Dawn the link to the story, and when she took a look at the image with the article, (which also listed the names on the charm), she knew it was her late grandma Agnes’. The Korynta family then posted the story on their Facebook pages and began tagging their family members, including the baby on the charm, Leon Korynta. [[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_large","fid":"2301604","attributes":{"alt":"Agnes Korynta owned the bracelet.","class":"media-image","height":"480","style":"font-size: 13.008px; line-height: 1.538em;","title":"Agnes Korynta owned the bracelet.","typeof":"foaf:Image","width":"342"}}]]“I think the reason I had my picture on there was because my mom just hadn’t gotten my charm made, and all the other parents were getting their charms in,” said Leon. “But she did have these little picture charms made and gave one to each of my grandmas, so I think Grandma Agnes just stuck it on there because she didn’t have a charm for me.” Leon says he and his cousins speculate that the bracelet may have been missing or at least off the grid for 35 to 40 years, since several more grandkids were born after the latest one on the bracelet. Leon says he does have an aunt who lives in Detroit Lakes and assumes maybe the bracelet inadvertently got lost or donated somewhere along the road. Now that it’s resurfaced, he says he thinks it may be a sign from up above. “Us cousins used to be close when we were younger; we’d spend every holiday together,” said Leon. “But after Grandma died, it seems like we just all kind of went our separate ways, just moved away, had our own families and sort of stopped talking to each other. I’m thinking maybe she’s pulling some angel strings to say ‘Hey, remember me? Remember each other?’” “Or maybe she was like, ‘Hey, maybe you guys should communicate a little bit more again,’” added Dawn, who agrees that life has gotten in the way of the Korynta family staying close. “Ah, I remember we used to always get together for everything, but none of us have really gotten together now for many moons.” After the bracelet story was passed around, Leon Korynta started up a closed Facebook page just for the family to stay in touch with, with the profile picture being, of course, Grandma Agnes. As for the charm bracelet, thrift store worker Aleisa Jopp met with Dawn’s daughter over the weekend in Fargo to make the exchange. It was an experience she never expected. “Crazy, crazy, crazy. It was just so awesome,” said Jopp, who says the response she received from this story was “unbelieveable.” “So many people called and emailed and messaged me on Facebook,” said Jopp, who says it’s funny how so many random people were willing to research her mystery. “I had people from Florida, Arizona, everywhere,” she laughed. One of those people was, of course, that curious teacher in Arizona who wanted to prove to her students that it’s easy to do good in the world. “This has just been so exciting,” said Richau, who told her students all about the case of the mystery Minnesota charm bracelet that she helped solve. DETROIT LAKES, Minn. - A mysterious thrift store charm bracelet that piqued the interest of many throughout Becker County and far beyond is back in the hands of its long lost family. Last week the Detroit Lakes Newspapers published an article on a bracelet with 11 engraved charms that contained first and middle names on them. One of those charms had no name, but was simply a tiny photo of a baby. Helping Hands Thrift Store worker Aleisa Jopp discovered the bracelet in a box that had been donated sometime before Christmas and stuck it away in the hopes that she’d be able to locate the family she suspected couldn’t have meant to throw it away. Thanks to readers who shared the story over social media, the mystery has been solved. [[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_preview","fid":"2301607","attributes":{"alt":"Leon Korynta, \"the baby.\"","class":"media-image","height":"180","title":"Leon Korynta, \"the baby.\"","typeof":"foaf:Image","width":"180"}}]]“It’s me,” said Leon Korynta, a sports broadcaster in Grand Rapids, Mich. “I’m the baby on the charm.” Korynta, who is originally from Grand Forks, says the charm bracelet belonged to his grandmother, Agnes Korynta of Grafton, N.D., who passed away 15 years ago this week. The charms were the names of the first 11 of her 21 grandchildren. It’s a bracelet that the Korynta cousins don’t remember seeing for decades - until now. A teacher’s curiosity Fargo native and now Arizona teacher Jessica Richau always talks to her students about doing good in the world and about doing nice things for others. So when she saw an article her cousin in Detroit Lakes posted on Facebook last week about a mysterious charm bracelet, her mind started turning. “The first thing I noticed was that this bracelet was really similar to one my mom had with all of our names on it, except this one had way more charms,” said Richau, who became curious enough to start Googling a few of the names listed on the charms. She chose the ones with the most unique spellings. An obituary popped up for Leroy Korynta with several of those first names listed as grandchildren. “I thought, oh my gosh, they didn’t all match up, but there couldn’t be five or six of the names that matched perfectly like that if it wasn’t them,” said Richau, who immediately started contacting the family through Facebook to see if it was them. “I got a Facebook message from this teacher in Arizona,” said Dawn Korynta, one of the cousins on the charm who lives in Warren, Minn. “She said she’d seen an article about a charm bracelet and was wondering it belonged to our family.” The teacher sent Dawn the link to the story, and when she took a look at the image with the article, (which also listed the names on the charm), she knew it was her late grandma Agnes’. The Korynta family then posted the story on their Facebook pages and began tagging their family members, including the baby on the charm, Leon Korynta.
“I think the reason I had my picture on there was because my mom just hadn’t gotten my charm made, and all the other parents were getting their charms in,” said Leon. “But she did have these little picture charms made and gave one to each of my grandmas, so I think Grandma Agnes just stuck it on there because she didn’t have a charm for me.” Leon says he and his cousins speculate that the bracelet may have been missing or at least off the grid for 35 to 40 years, since several more grandkids were born after the latest one on the bracelet. Leon says he does have an aunt who lives in Detroit Lakes and assumes maybe the bracelet inadvertently got lost or donated somewhere along the road. Now that it’s resurfaced, he says he thinks it may be a sign from up above. “Us cousins used to be close when we were younger; we’d spend every holiday together,” said Leon. “But after Grandma died, it seems like we just all kind of went our separate ways, just moved away, had our own families and sort of stopped talking to each other. I’m thinking maybe she’s pulling some angel strings to say ‘Hey, remember me? Remember each other?’” “Or maybe she was like, ‘Hey, maybe you guys should communicate a little bit more again,’” added Dawn, who agrees that life has gotten in the way of the Korynta family staying close. “Ah, I remember we used to always get together for everything, but none of us have really gotten together now for many moons.” After the bracelet story was passed around, Leon Korynta started up a closed Facebook page just for the family to stay in touch with, with the profile picture being, of course, Grandma Agnes. As for the charm bracelet, thrift store worker Aleisa Jopp met with Dawn’s daughter over the weekend in Fargo to make the exchange. It was an experience she never expected. “Crazy, crazy, crazy. It was just so awesome,” said Jopp, who says the response she received from this story was “unbelieveable.” “So many people called and emailed and messaged me on Facebook,” said Jopp, who says it’s funny how so many random people were willing to research her mystery. “I had people from Florida, Arizona, everywhere,” she laughed. One of those people was, of course, that curious teacher in Arizona who wanted to prove to her students that it’s easy to do good in the world. “This has just been so exciting,” said Richau, who told her students all about the case of the mystery Minnesota charm bracelet that she helped solve. DETROIT LAKES, Minn. - A mysterious thrift store charm bracelet that piqued the interest of many throughout Becker County and far beyond is back in the hands of its long lost family.Last week the Detroit Lakes Newspapers published an article on a bracelet with 11 engraved charms that contained first and middle names on them. One of those charms had no name, but was simply a tiny photo of a baby.Helping Hands Thrift Store worker Aleisa Jopp discovered the bracelet in a box that had been donated sometime before Christmas and stuck it away in the hopes that she’d be able to locate the family she suspected couldn’t have meant to throw it away.Thanks to readers who shared the story over social media, the mystery has been solved.
“It’s me,” said Leon Korynta, a sports broadcaster in Grand Rapids, Mich. “I’m the baby on the charm.”Korynta, who is originally from Grand Forks, says the charm bracelet belonged to his grandmother, Agnes Korynta of Grafton, N.D., who passed away 15 years ago this week. The charms were the names of the first 11 of her 21 grandchildren. It’s a bracelet that the Korynta cousins don’t remember seeing for decades - until now.A teacher’s curiosityFargo native and now Arizona teacher Jessica Richau always talks to her students about doing good in the world and about doing nice things for others. So when she saw an article her cousin in Detroit Lakes posted on Facebook last week about a mysterious charm bracelet, her mind started turning.“The first thing I noticed was that this bracelet was really similar to one my mom had with all of our names on it, except this one had way more charms,” said Richau, who became curious enough to start Googling a few of the names listed on the charms. She chose the ones with the most unique spellings. An obituary popped up for Leroy Korynta with several of those first names listed as grandchildren.“I thought, oh my gosh, they didn’t all match up, but there couldn’t be five or six of the names that matched perfectly like that if it wasn’t them,” said Richau, who immediately started contacting the family through Facebook to see if it was them.“I got a Facebook message from this teacher in Arizona,” said Dawn Korynta, one of the cousins on the charm who lives in Warren, Minn. “She said she’d seen an article about a charm bracelet and was wondering it belonged to our family.”The teacher sent Dawn the link to the story, and when she took a look at the image with the article, (which also listed the names on the charm), she knew it was her late grandma Agnes’. The Korynta family then posted the story on their Facebook pages and began tagging their family members, including the baby on the charm, Leon Korynta.[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_large","fid":"2301604","attributes":{"alt":"Agnes Korynta owned the bracelet.","class":"media-image","height":"480","style":"font-size: 13.008px; line-height: 1.538em;","title":"Agnes Korynta owned the bracelet.","typeof":"foaf:Image","width":"342"}}]]“I think the reason I had my picture on there was because my mom just hadn’t gotten my charm made, and all the other parents were getting their charms in,” said Leon. “But she did have these little picture charms made and gave one to each of my grandmas, so I think Grandma Agnes just stuck it on there because she didn’t have a charm for me.”Leon says he and his cousins speculate that the bracelet may have been missing or at least off the grid for 35 to 40 years, since several more grandkids were born after the latest one on the bracelet. Leon says he does have an aunt who lives in Detroit Lakes and assumes maybe the bracelet inadvertently got lost or donated somewhere along the road. Now that it’s resurfaced, he says he thinks it may be a sign from up above.“Us cousins used to be close when we were younger; we’d spend every holiday together,” said Leon. “But after Grandma died, it seems like we just all kind of went our separate ways, just moved away, had our own families and sort of stopped talking to each other. I’m thinking maybe she’s pulling some angel strings to say ‘Hey, remember me? Remember each other?’”“Or maybe she was like, ‘Hey, maybe you guys should communicate a little bit more again,’” added Dawn, who agrees that life has gotten in the way of the Korynta family staying close.“Ah, I remember we used to always get together for everything, but none of us have really gotten together now for many moons.”After the bracelet story was passed around, Leon Korynta started up a closed Facebook page just for the family to stay in touch with, with the profile picture being, of course, Grandma Agnes.As for the charm bracelet, thrift store worker Aleisa Jopp met with Dawn’s daughter over the weekend in Fargo to make the exchange. It was an experience she never expected.“Crazy, crazy, crazy. It was just so awesome,” said Jopp, who says the response she received from this story was “unbelieveable.”“So many people called and emailed and messaged me on Facebook,” said Jopp, who says it’s funny how so many random people were willing to research her mystery. “I had people from Florida, Arizona, everywhere,” she laughed.One of those people was, of course, that curious teacher in Arizona who wanted to prove to her students that it’s easy to do good in the world.“This has just been so exciting,” said Richau, who told her students all about the case of the mystery Minnesota charm bracelet that she helped solve.DETROIT LAKES, Minn. - A mysterious thrift store charm bracelet that piqued the interest of many throughout Becker County and far beyond is back in the hands of its long lost family.Last week the Detroit Lakes Newspapers published an article on a bracelet with 11 engraved charms that contained first and middle names on them. One of those charms had no name, but was simply a tiny photo of a baby.Helping Hands Thrift Store worker Aleisa Jopp discovered the bracelet in a box that had been donated sometime before Christmas and stuck it away in the hopes that she’d be able to locate the family she suspected couldn’t have meant to throw it away.Thanks to readers who shared the story over social media, the mystery has been solved.[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_preview","fid":"2301607","attributes":{"alt":"Leon Korynta, \"the baby.\"","class":"media-image","height":"180","title":"Leon Korynta, \"the baby.\"","typeof":"foaf:Image","width":"180"}}]]“It’s me,” said Leon Korynta, a sports broadcaster in Grand Rapids, Mich. “I’m the baby on the charm.”Korynta, who is originally from Grand Forks, says the charm bracelet belonged to his grandmother, Agnes Korynta of Grafton, N.D., who passed away 15 years ago this week. The charms were the names of the first 11 of her 21 grandchildren. It’s a bracelet that the Korynta cousins don’t remember seeing for decades - until now.A teacher’s curiosityFargo native and now Arizona teacher Jessica Richau always talks to her students about doing good in the world and about doing nice things for others. So when she saw an article her cousin in Detroit Lakes posted on Facebook last week about a mysterious charm bracelet, her mind started turning.“The first thing I noticed was that this bracelet was really similar to one my mom had with all of our names on it, except this one had way more charms,” said Richau, who became curious enough to start Googling a few of the names listed on the charms. She chose the ones with the most unique spellings. An obituary popped up for Leroy Korynta with several of those first names listed as grandchildren.“I thought, oh my gosh, they didn’t all match up, but there couldn’t be five or six of the names that matched perfectly like that if it wasn’t them,” said Richau, who immediately started contacting the family through Facebook to see if it was them.“I got a Facebook message from this teacher in Arizona,” said Dawn Korynta, one of the cousins on the charm who lives in Warren, Minn. “She said she’d seen an article about a charm bracelet and was wondering it belonged to our family.”The teacher sent Dawn the link to the story, and when she took a look at the image with the article, (which also listed the names on the charm), she knew it was her late grandma Agnes’. The Korynta family then posted the story on their Facebook pages and began tagging their family members, including the baby on the charm, Leon Korynta.
“I think the reason I had my picture on there was because my mom just hadn’t gotten my charm made, and all the other parents were getting their charms in,” said Leon. “But she did have these little picture charms made and gave one to each of my grandmas, so I think Grandma Agnes just stuck it on there because she didn’t have a charm for me.”Leon says he and his cousins speculate that the bracelet may have been missing or at least off the grid for 35 to 40 years, since several more grandkids were born after the latest one on the bracelet. Leon says he does have an aunt who lives in Detroit Lakes and assumes maybe the bracelet inadvertently got lost or donated somewhere along the road. Now that it’s resurfaced, he says he thinks it may be a sign from up above.“Us cousins used to be close when we were younger; we’d spend every holiday together,” said Leon. “But after Grandma died, it seems like we just all kind of went our separate ways, just moved away, had our own families and sort of stopped talking to each other. I’m thinking maybe she’s pulling some angel strings to say ‘Hey, remember me? Remember each other?’”“Or maybe she was like, ‘Hey, maybe you guys should communicate a little bit more again,’” added Dawn, who agrees that life has gotten in the way of the Korynta family staying close.“Ah, I remember we used to always get together for everything, but none of us have really gotten together now for many moons.”After the bracelet story was passed around, Leon Korynta started up a closed Facebook page just for the family to stay in touch with, with the profile picture being, of course, Grandma Agnes.As for the charm bracelet, thrift store worker Aleisa Jopp met with Dawn’s daughter over the weekend in Fargo to make the exchange. It was an experience she never expected.“Crazy, crazy, crazy. It was just so awesome,” said Jopp, who says the response she received from this story was “unbelieveable.”“So many people called and emailed and messaged me on Facebook,” said Jopp, who says it’s funny how so many random people were willing to research her mystery. “I had people from Florida, Arizona, everywhere,” she laughed.One of those people was, of course, that curious teacher in Arizona who wanted to prove to her students that it’s easy to do good in the world.“This has just been so exciting,” said Richau, who told her students all about the case of the mystery Minnesota charm bracelet that she helped solve.
