Wharf collapse takes more than wood and steel as a mother’s memorial bench is swept into the ocean

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to reflect that Shields was notified Tuesday that the nameplate from her mother’s memorial bench was recovered on Seabright State Beach.

Like millions in California and across the country, Ruby Shields learned Monday afternoon of the collapse of the end of the Santa Cruz Municipal Wharf. But from her home in El Dorado Hills northeast of Sacramento, her dismay at the news was quite a bit more intense than most people’s.

Her mother’s memorial bench had suddenly been swept out to sea.

A bench memorializing the late Kim Nellany-Shields, who died in 1994, was part of the collapsed section of the wharf. From 180 miles away, Ruby Shields first saw a drone video on Reddit confirming what she never expected to happen.

“It’s like a graveyard being hit by a tornado,” she said, “and it feels like no one is taking it seriously.”

To Shields and her family, the bench was sacred ground, she said. Her mother loved the ocean, and the family had the bench erected the year after her death. The bench was replaced about 15 years ago with a new bench of more durable materials. Shields has the original bench in her backyard.

“That was essentially her gravesite, in a sense” she said. “It was there for everyone to come and feel closer to her.”

A few years ago, the family gathered at the bench to mark what would have been her mother’s 60th birthday. “We threw a bunch of petals out into the water for her, and we all had a big dinner there.”

Kim’s parents, Ruby’s maternal grandparents, were Santa Cruzans and were well known for their prize-winning dahlias and orchids.

Shortly after going public with her story on Tuesday, Shields got word that the nameplate from her mother’s memorial bench had been recovered on Seabright State Beach.

On a Reddit post, Shields reposted a photo of two locals named Andrew and Ali, with the part of the bench that contained her mother’s name. A grateful Shields, who was a toddler when her mother died and whose father passed away two years ago, replied in the Reddit thread, “This for the first time in my whole life has made me feel like my mother and my father are both looking out for me.”

Contacted by phone, Shields told Lookout that the two folks who found the nameplate were strangers to her, and to each other. They went out to look for pieces of the bench after seeing Shields’ original Reddit post. “It’s amazing,” she said.

“I’m 2.5 hours away [by car], and they were still willing to help,” Shields said. “Reddit has always been the easier-to-talk-to community. I had the post up on Facebook for 30 minutes and people were already saying rude things, while [people on Reddit] just wanted to help. Reddit is always a safe place for me.”

Seabright resident Ali Walsh, who found the nameplate, told Lookout that it was the only piece of the bench anywhere in sight when she went out searching for it Tuesday. She found it propped up against a fire ring on the beach. 

“I walked the whole beach from the lighthouse to the river mouth, and it was pretty unusual that it was the only piece there,” she said.

Walsh had seen the original Reddit post from Shields desperately searching for any information regarding her mother’s bench. Walsh and Shields, who did not know each other before Tuesday, have another connection. Like Shields, Walsh also lost a parent at a very young age, her father, who was also memorialized on a bench overlooking the ocean in Santa Cruz. Also similar to Shields, she has her father’s original memorial bench in her yard, when it was removed due to construction from its spot overlooking Seabright Beach.

“Probably because I’ve been through something similar with the benches, it landed with me a little differently,” said Walsh on her impulse to go search for the Shields bench. “Since I also lost a parent when I was really little, you don’t have a lot of memories when you’re that young. So, it’s the one material thing you have to remember them by.”

Also part of the story was Santa Cruzan Andrew Polay, who responded to Ruby Shields after her original post and encouraged her to create a reward poster. He volunteered to print out the poster and post it around Seabright Beach. He was putting up a poster when he encountered Walsh, carrying the bench nameplate.

“I was just standing there for maybe 30 seconds total,” said Polay, “and she happened to walk past. But she didn’t know what number to call or how to get in touch [with Shields]. I literally had an email [addressed to Shields] open at the time to take a picture of the poster.”

The two women will meet on Christmas Day, when Shields will travel from her home near Sacramento to meet Walsh and take home the most important part of her mother’s memorial bench.

As for the rest of the bench, Shields said she has tried to get information from the City of Santa Cruz and the wharf’s management, but hasn’t gotten any indication of what might happen to what was one of a few memorial benches that were part of the collapsed section of the wharf.

She hopes to find the bench to either bring it back with her to El Dorado Hills, or find another spot for it overlooking the ocean in Santa Cruz. City spokesperson Katie Lee told Lookout that she knows city staff is in touch with Shields and plans to work with her, but did not yet have specifics about what could be done.

The bench, Shields said, is a comfort for not only her family, but for strangers as well. 

“The last time I was there, I saw a high school girl just bawling her eyes out,” she said. “I went up to her and said, ‘That’s my mom’s bench over there, and she’s a great listener, if you want to go sit down over there.’ And she did. My mom was a saint of a human being. She was a speech pathologist, helping children with speech disabilities. She would have liked that.”

– Max Chun contributed to this report.

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