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Last updated on Thursday, May 15, 2014
(CLARKSVILLE) - Ida Botkins kept detailed records of her family in a Bible.
WHAS11 reports tjhat the heirloom held records that haven't been seen in 30 years.
Clark County Sheriff's Deputy Scottie Maples came in contact with the antique memento.
"I was sitting there just drinking a Diet Coke at Circle K on Eastern Boulevard. She approached me and said, 'hey do you know Larry Wilder' and I said yeah we are pretty good friends and she said, 'hey, I have this Bible someone put in a shopping cart,'" Corporal Scottie Maples said.
Maples was given a large Bible that was once owned by Ida Botkins.
A Walmart customer in Clarksville turned the bible over to a clerk, who in turn handed it over to Maples.
"Nobody would have just forgot this or not saw it. It was just very random," Maples said.
The Bible belonged to local attorney Larry Wilder's grandmother, Ida Botkins.
Wilder's name was written in the Bible.
His grandmother--died locally in 1980-- and the Bible hadn't been seen since until it mysteriously turned up at the Clarksville Wal-Mart.
"The recollections the observations and the recorded history that's in that book is more than 70-years-old and it ended up in a Wal-Mart shopping cart in Clarksville, Ind. in a bag," Wilder said.
Inside the Bible were family pictures, school diplomas, payroll stubs, locks of hair and a special letter written 50 years ago.
"I called and thought you all would be home, it being Tuesday, but Sharon said you all were gone some place. I was worried about Sally," Dana Crawley said as she read a portion of a letter found in the bible.
It's a letter by Dana Crawley's father who was overseas in the military.
He was Botkins' son-in-law and she kept the letter in the Bible.
"I read it to my mom and it was special to her too because all her letters were destroyed so this is the only letter left," Crawley said.
The discovery of the Bible reminds this family of all the things you don't think about when someone dies and the legacy they leave behind.
"It makes you realize how important those people were and the lessons they taught you and that's how you ended up where you're at," Wilder said.
It brings up many emotions and in a way brings great memories back to life.
"When you look at it, kind of like brings her back," Crawley said.
It's unclear who had the book all these years, where it was and who turned the Bible over to the Wal-Mart clerk.
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