FARGO — Decades ago, a North Dakota family placed a statue of an angel next to the graves of three family members in a Fargo cemetery, only to find it missing a short time later.

Now, the Werlinger family is in disbelief. After a 35-year absence, the heavy concrete angel missing from their family burial plot has been returned to its intended home, worn by weather but otherwise in good shape.

The family doesn't know how or why someone took the statue back in the 1980s, or how or why it was returned, but say they harbor no anger toward whoever might have taken it.

Colette Werlinger is still shaking her head, calling what happened "unbelievable." She discovered the angel had been returned when visiting the graves of her father and two brothers at Fargo's Holy Cross Cemetery in late June.

Werlinger comes from a big Catholic family of 13 kids from Napoleon. One of her brothers, Dennis, died when he was 13 in a farm accident. Another brother, Joseph, died at birth. Her father, Anton, and the two boys were originally buried in Napoleon, but when Colette's mother moved to Fargo, the remains of the three family members were moved to Holy Cross Cemetery on Fargo's north side.

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"My mother made that decision, and whatever Mother said, that was gospel," Werlinger said.

After the move, Werlinger asked her mother if they could get the angel statue for the gravesite.

The family placed the angel on the burial plot, but just weeks later, it disappeared. Werlinger didn't understand. "Why would they take it?" she remembers asking herself.

"I was not angry, I was puzzled. It did not make too much sense to me," she said. "I thought, if it is gone, it is gone."

When Werlinger recently returned to care for the family burial plot, she at first didn't notice that the angel was returned. But as she got closer she could see that it had been gently placed in its original spot, next to the graves of her brothers, father and now her mother.

"I did not believe it," she said, laughing.



The Werlinger said there is no ill will over the taking of the angel statue, but they say they hope to get some answers.

Werlinger speculates that it may have offered a possible thief some type of comfort.

"People are good. And I will meet them someday. I believe it," Werlinger said. "I thought how kind and how much courage it took to come back and bring it back."