Dad’s long-lost wallet found in Chain O’ Lakes, returned to sons decades later

When Jim Mack and Dan Mack were kids in the late 1980s growing up on the Chain O’ Lakes, the brothers remember neighborhood dads offering them $50 to find keys, glasses or wallets that had fallen in the water. Rarely did they get that payday.

“Everybody has lost something in the Chain. You never expect to get it back,” Jim Mack said. “Every party, something ended up in the water. You helped dads look for a wedding ring or a necklace ... but you never found anything.”

Fast forward to Father’s Day weekend 2025. Carrie Blomquist of Johnsburg was with friends on their boat anchored in Pistakee Lake’s Columbia Bay. Wading through the shallow water, she felt something under her foot.

“It was a super thin old wallet. It had shells growing on it,” Blomquist said.

The wallet held just one thing: a driver’s license for John J. Mack Jr. with a Johnsburg address and a 1991 expiration date.

The following Sunday, Blomquist took a photo of her find and posted it on a Facebook page for Chain O’ Lakes boaters. Did anyone know John Mack, and did he still live at the River Terrace Drive home?

Chicago resident Dan Mack was at O’Hare International Airport about to take off for a European business trip when his text and Facebook alerts started blowing up. Before he had to shut off his phone for the international flight, he got out one message to Blomquist: that ID belonged to his dad, who passed away a few years earlier, and please send him a message.

Mack’s brother Jim lives in Switzerland, seven hours ahead of Chicago. On Monday morning, Jim Mack got a screen shot and a text from his brother, showing him the ID.

“In my mind it was him joking around. Then, I got another message from a friend about it. Was it an AI hack?” he wondered.

Dan Mack eventually connected with Blomquist, who stuck the real – but old and water-logged – ID in the mail. It arrived earlier this month.

“They have been so sweet and kind,” Blomquist said of the Mack family. “I think it is like his dad saying hello.”

Even if the wallet and driver’s license had never made it back to them, just knowing that it existed and was found means something, Jim Mack said.

“Dad passed in 2020. He was always a little dramatic. It is one more reminder ... of him. That time was very special for us. We had just started our life in Johnsburg after moving there from Bloomingdale,” he said.

The family moved to a house on the Chain in 1985, when the brothers were 9 and 6 years old, he said. The ID shows it was issued in 1987 – back when the family were still new to boating.

Their mother, Virginia “Ginny” Mack, said she was usually the one driving their 21-foot Cobalt cabin cruiser. She grew up on a farm and was familiar with driving machinery. Her husband, who grew up in Chicago, was less so.

“He wanted to sightsee,” she said.

“I think I remember a time, or multiple times, that dad would jump in the water and go, ‘Oh, crap, my wallet was in my pants,’” Dan Mack said.

The brothers have other strong memories: going to church on Sunday, then spending the rest of the day on the water; their dad making sub sandwiches for them to eat on the boat; and“going out, dropping an anchor with a huge sub sandwich to eat, sitting out there til sunset. It was an amazing part of our lives,” Jim Mack said.

Ginny Mack does not remember her late husband losing his license, but its discovery brought back emotions for her.

“I wish he was still here,” she said from her home in Florida. “He would have been shocked, too. I miss him a lot and something like this, it is like raising him from the dead. I am happy that it was found, and being where it was ... it really is something. I am surprised and happy all at the same time.”

Finding the wallet also has been emotional for Blomquist, who lost her father in 2005. June 15, Father’s Day this year, was also his birthday.

“The thought of getting something back of his – I would love it if someone 30 years later found something of his. I would just know how much it would mean to me," Blomquist said.

Dan Mack is planning to mount the license in a frame with a map of Pistakee Lake and an arrow pointing to where it was found. It will go to his son, Dan Mack said.

His brother isn’t so sure about the plan.

“We will share it,” Jim Mack said.