HAVERHILL, MASS. (WHDH) - After finding a woman’s remains in their back yard, a Haverhill family worked to find her family and reunite them with their loved one.
Members of the Arahovites family were cleaning out their formerly wooded lot when they made an unexpected discovery — an urn containing a woman’s ashes.
“Obviously she had family, she was put in an urn, she didn’t pass away and was put into a city plot, so obviously someone cared enough to make those arrangements,” said Kim Arahovites. “So we don’t think her final resting place was supposed to be our yard.”
Kim and other family members got to work, tracing the woman’s life from Haverhill to Texas and back to Haverhill again, up to New Hampshire and finally to Maine. That’s where they found an obituary for her and were able to contact a cousin.
Marjorie Pettoruto said she believed her cousin had been buried next to her mother in Haverhill’s Elmwood Cemetery when she passed away in 2003, and was shocked to find out her actual resting place.
“We were surprised that she was just left behind in someone’s yard … we would have never known if these lovely people were not digging up their yard,” Pettoruto said. “We’re really grateful and thankful that these people really went out of their way, beyond words, how they even tracked us down.”
Kim Arahovites said she was glad to return the ashes to family.
“We’re very relieved because we feel like she’ll be where she belongs,” Arahovites said.
(Copyright (c) 2024 Sunbeam Television. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)