After 10 years, discovery of missing headstone gives family ‘peace of mind’

Reyna Ramirez let quiet tears fall down her cheeks Monday afternoon as she laid eyes on a dusty headstone engraved with her late husband’s name sitting on a table in the Fresno County Sheriff’s Office.

The words “querido esposo y padre,” meaning “dear husband and father” in Spanish, are inscribed above Gonzalo Ramirez’s name, his birthday and the day he died – a date indicating his life was cut tragically short.

It’s been 10 years since Ramirez last saw her husband’s headstone, which once was embedded in the earth near where he took his last breath on Sept. 10, 1990.

Gonzalo Ramirez died in a crash with a semi truck at the intersection of Manning Avenue and Hills Valley Road near Orange Cove nearly three decades ago. His remains are buried in his hometown in Mexico, but his family maintained his headstone at the crash site as a way to remember him.

The headstone disappeared years ago when a nearby home was demolished. Luckily, it was found last week, and a sheriff’s deputy took it upon himself to return it to its rightful owner. By posting about the discovery on social media, the sheriff’s office was able to track down the Ramirez family, who now lives in Orosi.

“You have no idea what this means to us,” said Ricardo Ramirez, the oldest of Gonzalo and Reyna’s three sons. “It’s a heck of a way to start a new year.”

Deputy Jose Lomeli took the call when a mother and daughter found the headstone while walking near a canal outside Dinuba.

“This was the first time I got a call like this,” he said. “Just driving there, I was wondering, ‘What am I going to do once I get there?’”

It took three people to lift the headstone, which weighs about 130 pounds.

“If I was a member of his family, I’d want it back,” Lomeli said.

Lomeli contacted local cemeteries and reviewed death records. An online search at www.findagrave.com, the sheriff’s office said on Facebook, revealed the same information that appeared on the stone, but a local grave or family couldn’t be found.

When the sheriff’s office posted to Facebook on Friday that the headstone had been found under a bridge along Monson Avenue, it caught the attention of Ramirez’s son, Eddie Ramirez, 29. It later became clear why a local grave couldn’t be found. Ramirez is buried thousands of miles away – in his hometown of Manuel Doblado, in the Mexican state of Guanajuato.

Lomeli said the experience of finding the headstone and eventually the family was “incredible.”

Sheriff Margaret Mims explained it another way: “This didn’t happen by accident.”

Mims and Lomeli were there on Monday when Reyna and Ricardo Ramirez, along with a cousin, arrived to retrieve the headstone.

“It’s good to see it back in one piece,” Ricardo Ramirez said. “It’s a good feeling. It’s a good moment.”

The sheriff’s office is getting the headstone fully restored for the family.

Henry Berumen, who has restored monuments for 47 years, said after he’s done with the headstone, it will be better than new. And, the work will be done at no charge to the Ramirez family.

“There’s no value,” Berumen said. “There’s only sentimental value for the family. You can’t put a price on that.”

This story was originally published January 8, 2018 at 5:41 PM with the headline "After 10 years, discovery of missing headstone gives family ‘peace of mind’."