One New Jersey woman's Christmas miracle came early this year.

On Sunday, Joyce Wharton received a phone call from a logger in Washington state who said he had found her late mother's long-lost wedding ring. In 1959, Wharton's parents went missing while flying their small plane from Portland to Seattle. It took more than a decade for anyone to find the wreckage.

The logger, named Nick Buchanan, came across the ring in 1997 and spent years trying to track down the family.

"I never once thought it belonged to me," Buchanan told Q13 FOX News. "I just was hoping that there was a daughter or a family member that I could turn it over to."

And sure enough there was. After doing some research on Ancestry.com, Buchanan's nephew and a friend came across Wharton's name. Then Buchanan made the important phone call.

"My mouth was open," Wharton told ABC7. "I couldn't believe what I was hearing...It restores your faith in human nature, because there's so many bad things happening. And yet there are good people out there."

"The last time I saw this ring, my mother was wearing it 55 years ago," she added. "That's my Christmas miracle."

For more on this wonderful story, watch the video above.

H/T Q13 FOX News