Missing 100-Year-Old Piece Of Art Returned To Family [VIDEO]

COLD SPRING -- They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but for one family a hand crafted work of art left them speechless.

Besty Rakotz has always heard stories of her grandma, Cecilia Kuebelbeck, crocheting a picture of the Last Supper, but has never seen it.

She crocheted it when she was about 14-years-old to be on display at the alter at the Church of St. Joseph. When they remodeled the church the piece just got thrown in a box.

By the late 1990's, the piece was found by Sister Rita Budig, OSB, who had it framed and brought it to Assumption Community in Cold Spring, where Cecilia later became a resident.

They would wheel my grandma down to the dining room and when she would see the piece her hands would start moving as she was crocheting. A cousin of her's later confirmed it was the same piece she made all those years ago.

After Cecilia's passing in 1999 her family went to visit the cousin, who was also living at Assumption, only to find the piece was no longer there and staff had no idea where it was.

Assumption Community Administrator Lindsay Sand says the piece, along with other prints, were removed when they renovated the dining room.

When this part of the dining room disappeared and became the chapel, the space became more of a spiritual focus. So the prints that were hung within the dining room didn't make it back up.

For ten years the piece was missing, until staff at Assumption found it in a crawl space earlier this month.

We went to clean out our storage area to make space for our marketing materials and that's when we found the piece.

Staff quickly called Cecilia's daughter Pauline, who along with her daughter's Mary Hoover and Rakotz, were reunited with the piece.

Jodi Lubbers with Assumption Community says the family, especially Pauline, were overjoyed to see the piece in person.

She hasn't seen it in how many years and to see it displayed so nicely, it took her breath away.

The picture now resides with Rakotz for the time being. She says finding the missing work of art after all these years is truly a miracle from heaven.