RICHMOND, Va. -- The owner of The Magpie, a restaurant on West Leigh Street in Richmond, is okay with customers taking things home, as long as its leftover food from their meal. This week however, someone entered the restaurant and left with something they were not served -- a family heirloom.
Tiffany Palma-Gellner Lane just wants the photo of her great great-grandmother returned.
"I just want to try to appeal to the person who stole the photograph of my great-great-grandmother[Delia Quinn]," Tiffany Palma-Gellner Lane said in a video posted on her restaurant's Facebook page. "I think that maybe you may have thought it was just another old photograph inside of an establishment and it would be funny to take, but in actuality it is the only photograph of my great-great-grandmother that I own."
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The photo, which has hung in the bathroom of the restaurant since the Magpie opened three years ago, was taken either Wednesday or Thursday, Palma-Gellner Lane said.
"The reason it is inside my establishment is because my husband and I have taken so much time and energy to make this an important place for us," she said. "We live here. We are here hours and hours a day. It's not just a restaurant, it's a home."
Palma-Gellner Lane said the photo took on extra special meaning after the death of her grandmother.
"When she died I found a treasure trove of family history in her closet including a myriad of love letters from my great-grandfather to my greatgrand mother from World War I. These letters and photos are all I have left of my father's family as my grandmother and father are dead now. This photo is irreplaceable."
She described the photo as a "thick picture with a thick border." It was taken around 1910.
This photo had a background similar to the one taken from the restaurant.
"There's a stern looking woman in a black corseted dress standing on what looks like a dock or industrial area," she said. "She has her hair pulled back with very short bangs and is wearing glasses."
She said this photo of her great-grandmother Agnes Quinn had a background similar to the one taken from the restaurant.
"I understand that maybe you didn't realize that it was very important to us, but if you would please return it I would be so thankful," she ended her plea. "It's a family heirloom. It's the only one that I have of that generation of my family, so I would really really appreciate it. No questions asked. Just return it."
The Magpie can be reached at (804) 269-0023.
