CNN
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Faye Bauman was wearing a diamond ring when she fell and broke her hip last June. She was 85 years old. At North Florida Hospital in Gainesville, she removed some of her jewelry, including the ring, and gave it to a nurse.
While recovering at a rehabilitation center after surgery, she realized she had left all of her jewelry behind when she left the hospital, including her diamond engagement ring to the love of her life.
She still remembers the look in his eyes when he gave her the ring. Eager and innocent. They had met at a party, and at the end of the party they were holding hands under the table. He saved up money to buy her a ring. A half-carat diamond in white gold. One day he showed up in her office and got down on one knee. He was stunning in his naval uniform. She said yes, put the ring on her finger, sliding it up and down so the diamond would reflect the light.
Fifty-six years later, the diamond, now set in a new yellow gold ring, had disappeared from the hospital, and Faye Baumann wanted to know why.
For nearly 12 months, she and her daughter tried to find answers. They spoke to at least four hospital officials. Baumann filed a police report, which classified the missing jewels as grand theft. But the results were unsatisfactory. It seemed the jewels were gone forever. Now, in May 2024, they say, no one has tried to rectify the situation.
Baumann finally addressed her predicament with reporters: In a lengthy message sent from her iPad, she apologized for any errors that may have been caused by her macular degeneration, writing, “At this time, the CEO is not returning my or our calls. I have done everything I was instructed to do, but at this time, it seems I do not exist.”
CNN contacted the hospital and police and waited several days for a response while Baumann recounted her story in multiple phone interviews.
She said she never thought she’d see the diamond ring again, but instead realized it was an opportunity to talk about something more important: the man who gave it to her.
“I have to tell you, I wasn’t a princess when I met him,” she said, “but Tom turned me into one.”
Before he married Faye, Tom had cared for her sick mother; this experience strengthened his habit of giving to others. For most of their marriage, he brought her breakfast in bed every day. He picked flowers from the garden, put them in a small Waterford vase and placed them on her breakfast tray. He asked her how to cut a banana. He brought her English tea with toast and jam and soft-boiled eggs. When she met Tom, Faye was divorced and had three young daughters, but Tom treated them as his own.
Tom and Faye were married for 48 years. She was a mental health counselor and he worked in the Naval Supply Corps. After he left the Navy, he became a licensed contractor. “Every house we lived in, he renovated,” she says. He did the plumbing and electrical work, added family rooms, installed French doors, and even took on extra work to buy and install a new hot tub for the woman he loved.
Courtesy of Faye Baumann
Tom and Faye Bauman in undated photo.
They had a long romance that took them from Florida to Rhode Island, from London to Istanbul, and back to Florida. She admired his good looks and liked his smell. They danced on the beach with their eyes closed.
Tom cared for Faye, then couldn’t. In his fifties, his mind started to go haywire. First dementia, then Parkinson’s. He painted his room the wrong color. He walked around outside in his underwear. In the grocery store, he picked up a stick of gum off the floor and put it in his mouth.
Tom’s body began to deteriorate, starting with his legs. Now it was Faye’s turn to look after him. She pulled him out of the hot tub when he couldn’t get out on his own. She put him on a mat in the garden and had him lie down and pull weeds. She got up early in the morning to clean the drains, so Tom didn’t think she’d notice. his work.
This continued for over 20 years. He was her husband, but the man she married was nothing more than a memory. He asked to move to a nursing home, and she allowed him. Sometimes she would wake up in the middle of the night, drive to the nursing home, and climb into bed with him.
“I don’t want to die,” he told her.
As Faye Bauman reminisced about her husband, the case of the missing ring started to move. That seemed to change a few days after a CNN reporter asked about the ring. A Gainesville police spokesman said the case had been assigned to detectives.
A spokesperson for HCA Healthcare’s North Florida branch released the following statement:
“Compassionate care is the highest goal for staff at HCA Florida North Florida Hospital. We investigated this matter with our contracted security vendor, who ensures the safety of patient belongings, and assisted the Gainesville Police Department in their investigation. The investigation is ongoing. We regret the loss of this personal item and have committed to compensating this individual to make things right.”
It was an improvement, if not a complete solution. Faye Baumann still wants to know how the ring disappeared, and she wants more answers about what hospital officials did in the year since.
As for the man who put the ring on her finger, she is certain of his final destination.
Courtesy of Faye Baumann
Faye and Tom Baumann on their wedding day 57 years ago. “We had a great life,” she says.
At the end, he was on morphine, he wasn’t talking, they were together, and he was losing consciousness.
“Oh,” she said, remembering the moment, “he was so beautiful.”
She held his hand, kissed him, said the Lord’s Prayer, it was as if angels filled the room, and she praised God as she listened to the sound of Tom’s last breath.
Nothing lasts forever, at least not on this earth. She wore the diamond ring for the next seven years. Then, just like Tom, it was gone.
“Hey,” Faye said, “we had a great life.”
Her voice trembled as she thought of him. She imagined the old Tom, kneeling before her that day in 1967. She knew she would see him again, renewed and refreshed, with open arms, welcoming her home.
