13 Women and Their Necklace

What a group of women learned about life, love, and happiness from one spectacular necklace.

The Necklace in the Window

Jonell McLain, 58, moved purposefully through the mall, shopping only for a box of candy for a real estate client. She paused to glance in the window of Van Gundy and Sons, a venerable family-owned jewelry store in Ventura, California. Usually Jonell's glances were as quick as her strides, but this time she stopped and stared.

In the center display case, a diamond necklace glittered against black velvet. The diamonds were strung in a single strand all the way to the clasp, the center diamond the largest, the two closest to the clasp the smallest. The gradations were minuscule, the effect breathtaking.

Jonell owned a few pieces of good jewelry, but a luxury necklace was something else. She wondered, What would it feel like to wear something so extravagant, so lovely? On a whim, she entered the store. "May I see the necklace in the window?" she asked.

When the diamond stunner was around her neck, Jonell took a deep breath and, exhaling, asked the price.

"Thirty-seven thousand dollars," said the saleswoman.

Jonell gasped.

Who buys a $37,000 necklace?

Looking in the mirror again, she couldn't help but think of the choices she'd made in her life -- choices that guaranteed she could never afford a necklace like this. She was a real estate agent, married with two children. In her spare time, she mentored disadvantaged kids. Though she lived a comfortable life, there wasn't room for excessive spending on things like fancy jewelry.

Deep in thought, she heard just snippets of the saleswoman's words: The necklace has 118 diamonds … brilliant-cut … mined from nonconflict areas … 15.24 carats. But none of it mattered. In a world overflowing with need, Jonell felt that owning a $37,000 necklace was morally indefensible.

She handed it back and left the store. But she couldn't forget it.


Back at the mall with her 86-year-old mother a few weeks later, Jonell casually strolled by Van Gundy's and saw the diamond necklace still in the window. "Mom, I want to show you something," she said.

Inside the store, she asked for the necklace once more. "Try it on," she told her mother.

The older woman's eyes widened as she clicked the clasp. "It's beautiful," she said. She thought the piece was a classic. Now the price had dropped considerably, to $22,000, and the store was taking bids on any item on display.

Jonell reflected on how odd it was that we stand shoulder to shoulder enjoying a museum masterpiece or a great landscape, yet we can't share a personal luxury. And she got an idea.

I could wear a fabulous item like this if I bought it with other women, she mused. No one needs a 15-carat diamond necklace all the time. But what about every now and then? I can't spend $22,000, but I can spend $1,000. If I can convince 11 other women to go in with me, I could bid $12,000. The necklace had come down $15,000. Why not another $10,000?

At home later, Jonell called friends, colleagues, women in her walking group. Most said no. No money. No time. No interest. But within a few weeks, she'd found a group of seven women to go in with her on the necklace. Close enough, she decided. By the time the Visa bill arrived, she'd have found the others.

Tom Van Gundy, 54, won't forget the day in September 2004 that Jonell strode into his store with a group of women, giddy with possibility. "Wow! It looks like a million bucks," said Mary Karrh, a 53-year-old accountant, when she spotted the necklace.

Everyone huddled around as she tried it on. Her words surprised even her: "I can see myself wearing this."

"We need pictures," Jonell said.

One of them grabbed a disposable camera; soon each was posing for a photo wearing the diamonds. They were amazed that they were even thinking of buying such an extravagance, even if only as a time-share. "It's gorgeous," they said.

Finally, Jonell handed Tom Van Gundy a slip of paper with the bid from the group. She was nervous; she wanted him to drop his price nearly by half. With her real estate background, she was confident in negotiating, but she also knew a low bid might not succeed.

Van Gundy eyed the women's offer: $12,000. He winced. Usually he handled negotiations himself, but on a big-ticket item like this one, he needed clearance. He said to Jonell, "I want to run some numbers," and walked to the back room, where his wife, Priscilla, the store's chief financial officer, sat hunched over the books.

Making a Deal

Priscilla Van Gundy generally avoided looking into customers' faces, believing business shouldn't get personal. When her husband said, "A group of women want a special price on the diamond necklace. What can we sell it for?" she began tapping figures on an adding machine: one for the actual cost of the necklace, another for the number of months it had been in the store, a third for what the store needed to make a profit from it.

"Eighteen thousand," she said.

Tom knew that number wasn't going to fly, but he was used to the back-and-forth. He returned to Jonell to counter her bid.

"Not low enough," she said firmly.

Tom went back to Priscilla. "Can we go any lower?" She felt his apprehension. Thirty-three years of marriage and she could read his emotions like a spreadsheet. She tapped out more numbers. "Seventeen thousand," she said.

Tom crossed out the $12,000 figure on the piece of paper and scribbled $15,000. "Can we do this?" he asked. "It could be good for business."

"We sell it for that and we won't have a business," Priscilla replied.

Tom knew the store was successful because of her; she had her finger on every dollar. But just for once, he wanted her to be flexible. "I have a feeling about this," he said.

"We'd make no profit."

He realized he was willing to let go of any profit. He didn't want to turn these women away, and he really wanted to see his wife smile the way they were all smiling -- the way he hadn't seen Priscilla smile since her sister died of cancer six months earlier. He walked up front, showing Jonell the number he had written down.

"I'll give it to you for this price, with one condition," he said. "Let my wife be in your group."

Jonell had no idea why, nor did she even know who his wife was. But this necklace was about inclusion and sharing. "It's a deal," she said.

"I gave it to them for $15,000," Tom reported to Priscilla. "But you get to be in the group."

"What?" she said.

"The group of women. You get to be part of it."

Had he forgotten that the mall took 7 percent of the sale price? she thought. They wouldn't even get their cost from it. And she had no interest in being part of the group. But there was little point in arguing, Priscilla figured, so she went back to the books to find a way to make up for the loss.


Jonell's confidence was not misplaced. By the time her Visa bill arrived three weeks later, she'd lured the last of the women. With Priscilla, there were now 13.

They were longtime friends, new friends, and friends of friends, their ages ranging from 50 to 62. They were childless and mothers of four, empty nesters and Little League moms. They were card-carrying conservatives and lifelong liberals. Some had advanced degrees; others, high school diplomas. Their careers included finance, farming, medicine, and teaching. They were Catholic and Jewish, feminist and traditionalist, blonde and gray. All were buying into possibility.

"We are what we do," Jonell said to the others, "not what we own."

Her thinking included sharing a necklace among a group of women, creating a circle of friends, even reaching out to others beyond that. Jonell had a gift for motivating people. She'd been involved with, among other causes, the National Charity League, in which mothers and daughters served the community together. When people got together for a purpose beyond themselves, Jonell knew, fresh ideas and energy flowed. Who could predict what a group of women could accomplish together?

They agreed that each of them would wear the necklace for four weeks of the year, during her birthday month, and that they'd meet as a group when it was time to pass it on. They'd split the cost of insurance, and any woman could borrow the necklace for a special occasion. They planned to record their adventures with Jewelia -- they'd decided to name the necklace after Julia Child, an idol to some of them -- in a scrapbook. And by the way, one of them wondered, how did they all feel about donating towels to the homeless? (They agreed, the first of their many charitable acts together.)

Only two women had the same birthday month. Since Patti Channer, administrator of a dental practice, would celebrate her 56th birthday in just nine days, she was first.

Patti wore the $15,000 necklace to bed the first night but twice woke up feeling panicky. Was it still in one piece -- nothing broken? This was the first time since she was 13 and filched her sister's gold charm bracelet that she'd worn something that didn't belong to her. By morning, she started to relax.

During her month with the necklace, Patti wore it on the golf course and to a family wedding in Oahu. She wore it to the orthopedic clinic when her husband, Gary, underwent shoulder surgery. She wore it while helping to hose down a neighborhood fire.

And she talked about it. "I liked the story of the deal and getting the necklace for the price we did," she said. "But the story of sharing it is a truly great conversation topic."

Patti's first job in college was in an Abraham & Straus department store. She'd always considered herself a consummate shopper; her closet teemed with shoes and bags. But in time, her experience with the necklace transformed her, as it did all the women.

"When I was younger," Patti says now, "I shopped to fill the holes in my life. Today I shop just to look. Since owning the necklace, I've started to give away my accessories. The truth is, there's nothing I need anymore."

A Great Group of Women

Mary Osborn left home at age 17, got married at 18, and had the first of her two children at 22. For years she was haunted by not having a college degree. "It's why I've worked so hard to get an informal education," she says today. "I'm always seeking new information, always taking a class: Great Books seminars, legislative workshops, computer classes. I ask myself, What do college grads know that I don't?"

At first she was intimidated, she says, when she met the other women. But that began to change. "I'm a black-and-white person. I don't see too much gray. Listening to the others' viewpoints made me less narrow-minded. They've broadened my outlook. And they're so empowered themselves that being with them has empowered me."

Not long after joining the group, Mary persuaded the others to adopt Miracle House in Ventura as a beneficiary of a group fund-raiser. The residential drug-rehab program for women had saved the life of someone in Mary's family. Ever since, she'd wanted to give back.

With the group's blessing, Mary organized a dinner at a local restaurant. Two women from the program gave emotional testimonials. Their stories, crediting Miracle House with turning their lives around, so moved the crowd, including Mary herself, that the $50-per-person donation ended up netting $7,500 for the organization.

With that money, Miracle House was able to subsidize treatment for ten needy women. From then on, the 13 women of Jewelia realized they had the power to effect change in their own communities.

Nancy Huff, mother of three and manager of a property-management company, had grown used to her husband Wayne's lack of interest in socializing. He worked in construction, and going out at night wasn't his priority. He was happy just snapping on the TV.

"I used to call him Sparky. Now he's Sparkless," Nancy complains. "As we've gotten older, he wants to be home more and I want to be out more. The rest of our life together is good; I love him more than ever. But I saw many women going out with their husbands while I sat home. I learned it was my responsibility to get the social life I wanted."

The necklace ended up giving Nancy what she needed: more friends, more outings. "Fun doesn't just happen," says Nancy. "You have to find it. Plus," she adds, laughing, "after I've had a few hours of fun, I'm much nicer to live with."


For her entire adult life, Roz Warner, 59, equated fun with escape. As a physician, she'd never had time for it.

The daughter of a judge, she had earned her degree piecemeal at seven different colleges, all while selling Avon during the school year, running a motel in the summer, and raising a son. "After five years of marriage, I woke up one day and my husband was gone," she says. "I was devastated. But I realized I could have a better life."

That better life included attending UCLA med school and leading hospital task forces. "I've always worked in a man's world," Roz reflects. "Women weren't in my comfort zone. When I joined the group, I could have dominated the discussions; the others had an unnatural respect for me as a physician. But I'm not an authority on everything. My ability has been to listen and to help us move forward."

She adds, "Before this, my life was all about work. These women have given me a foundation I didn't have."

Roz ended up moderating another fund-raiser the women organized, to benefit an affordable-housing program for artists. The idea was to auction off an "enchanted evening" with the women of Jewelia. Thanks to a full house, they raised $1,200.

And Priscilla Van Gundy, the one who haggled in the jewelry store? During one of the group's earliest celebrations, the necklace showed its true power to transform. A single chair at the long rectangular table at a local restaurant indicated that the jeweler's wife was the last to arrive. Priscilla saw women laughing and talking; she saw camaraderie.

"I'm sorry I'm late," she told the others. "I had work to do."

Jonell welcomed her warmly and introduced her to everyone. They thought, So this is the woman whose husband made it all possible.

Priscilla saw that Mary O'Connor was wearing the necklace; it shimmered against the red sweater she wore. Though she'd seen the necklace in her store for over a year, Priscilla had never seen it look so brilliant. Did it look especially beautiful when it was worn -- or was it these women who gave it such luster?

That night, Tom Van Gundy saw his wife smile for the first time in months, her warm brown eyes crinkling at the corners. "This is a great group of women," Priscilla told him. "Thank you for making me part of it."

*** What the Necklace Meant to …

Patti Channer: Dumped her frills

Maggie Hood: Opened herself to others

Nancy Huff: Found her sense of fun

Mary Karrh: Put money second

Roz McGrath: Put the group first

Jonell McLain: Brought everyone together

Dale Muegenburg: Rekindled a marriage

Dana Murdock*: Went against her grain

Mary O'Connor: Made it a family affair

Mary Osborn: Donated to charity

Tina Osborne: Became a joiner

Priscilla Van Gundy: Learned to smile again

Roz Warner: Fit friends in

*replaced by Jone Pence