Widower leaves tear-jerking note attached to donated wedding gown

"I wish any lady who takes this dress to have a life with her loved one 56 years like I did. [They were] happy years. I was a lucky man to marry a lady like mine."

That was the hand-written note discovered attached to a vintage wedding dress that was donated to a British charity shop, leading store employees to set off on a quest to find the widower that had left it for them.

The ornate gown, believed to be a custom creation from the 1950s, was given to a St. Gemma's charity shop in the United Kingdom this week.

"They knew immediately that it was a very special dress, but the note made it even more special," St. Gemma's employee Nicola Woodgate told ABC News.

The gown and the note gained so much attention that the shop decided to auction it off on eBay. Proceeds from the shops benefit St. Gemma's Hospice in Leeds, England. The current winning bid for the dress is almost $1,000.

Late Thursday, St. Gemma's posted to its Facebook page that they had located the man who had donated the dress.

"He is a big fan of St Gemma's Hospice and is overwhelmed with the International attention that his late wife's dress is generating," the post reads. The man wishes to remain anonymous, but according to St. Gemma's "he is watching the media frenzy with interest and thinks it is wonderful."