The week's good news: September 14, 2017

Air National Guard senior airmen Lauren Durham and Michael Davis kiss after they are married while on duty during Hurricane Irma.

(Image credit: Frank Weber/Orange County Convention Center via AP)

Jump to category:

1. Woman finds mother's missing wedding dress in antiques store
2. Girl with robotic hand invited by MLB teams to throw first pitches
3. Air National Guard members wed while on duty during Hurricane Irma
4. Friends in Florida help save beached manatees
5. Man unknowingly moves in next door to long-lost sister

published 14 September 2017

1. Woman finds mother's missing wedding dress in antiques store

Jane Fine Foster was shopping in Grand Junction, Colorado, earlier this year when she did a double take. As she walked by A Robin's Nest Antiques, Foster saw three very familiar pictures in a frame: They were of her mother, taken at her 1948 wedding. Foster thought she'd never see the photos again — her family had missed a payment in 2003 on their storage unit, and the contents, including the pictures and her mother's wedding dress, were auctioned off. "You think, 'Oh, you're seeing things,'" Foster told Inside Edition. "That really was my mother's wedding photo." She went inside and shared her story with the owner, who shocked her once again by saying he also had the wedding gown. Foster's mother died in 2013, and having her dress back means Foster can "touch it now and think of her."

Hailey Dawson, 7, has set a lofty goal for herself: to throw out the first pitch at every Major League Baseball park. She was born with Poland Syndrome, a rare birth defect that left her right hand without three fingers. Her mother, Yong Dawson, approached the University of Nevada Las Vegas' engineering department, and asked if they could make a robotic hand for her daughter. Using fishing wire and a 3D printer, they created a hand just for Hailey. Word is spreading about her quest to throw first pitches at every park, and over the past two years, she's wowed crowds at Nationals Park and Oriole Park at Camden Yards. This week, Hailey has been invited by several teams, including the New York Mets and Oakland A's, to throw first pitches, and she's excited to participate and spread awareness of Poland Syndrome.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

An uninvited guest named Irma ruined their original wedding plans, but two members of the Air National Guard came up with a last-minute solution. Senior airmen Lauren Durham, 24, and Michael Davis, 26, were supposed to get married this past weekend on a Florida beach, but both were deployed to help with Hurricane Irma relief efforts. On Sunday, their fellow Guard members suggested they get married inside the hangar. "It just kind of unfolded," Durham told The Associated Press. Dressed in fatigues, Durham said "I do" to Davis in front of friends and outside relief workers. Their best friend in the Guard is a notary, and she officiated the ceremony, which ended with Skittles for everyone instead of wedding cake. Durham and Davis have been together for five years, and while this wasn't the wedding they planned, it was fitting for two members of the Guard. "Service before self," Davis said.

When five friends ventured outside of their emergency shelter in Manatee County, Florida, on Sunday afternoon and saw two manatees stranded on the beach, they came up with a plan to save them. Hurricane Irma caused the water in Sarasota Bay to recede toward its eyewall, leaving the manatees beached 100 yards from deeper water. Tony Foradini-Campos and his friends took photos of the manatees and posted them on social media, hoping someone who could help would see the pictures. "We couldn't just let those manatees die out there," Foradini-Campos told the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. In four hours, the post was shared 6,100 times, and deputies and conservation officials saw it and arrived at the beach with tarps they used to get the manatees back into the water. "It's an amazing story," Foradini-Campos said. "It shows what people can do when they come together."

Philip Osborn never knew he had a sister until he moved in next door to her. After living in Florida for years, Osborn recently moved back to a Michigan retirement home to be closer to his family. His new neighbor, Marilyn Meyers, adopted at birth, had spent the past few decades searching for her biological family — so when she heard that someone with the last name Osborn had just moved in, she started investigating. After confirming small bits of family history, they were shocked to discover they were siblings. "I've always wanted to be an older brother," Osborn told Fox17. "It's divine intervention."

Explore More

Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.