Bust of woman turns up in yard
Adela Gonzmart's likeness turned up in a yard blocks from the Columbia Restaurant.
By KEVIN GRAHAM
Published January 9, 2006
TAMPA - For the family of the late Adela Gonzmart, Sunday was like a homecoming.
They and a treasured bust of the Columbia Restaurant matriarch were reunited. Relatives had been heartbroken since Dec. 11, when someone stole the bronze likeness.
"Our prayers were answered," said Richard Gonzmart, Adela's son and a fourth-generation owner of the Columbia. "I guess God was overseeing this search."
The bust had never been far from the landmark Ybor City restaurant. It had been in Linda Thomas' nearby yard leaning against a plant.
"The bust has been 600 yards away from the Columbia all along," said Tampa police Lt. John Newman.
Richard Gonzmart ended 2005 on a bittersweet note. It was supposed to be a year of jubilation as the Columbia celebrated its 100th anniversary.
Then, someone stole his mother's bust from outside the restaurant at 2117 E Seventh Ave. - one week before the fourth anniversary of her death.
Richard Gonzmart so desperately wanted the bust returned that he vowed not to ask any questions of whoever had taken it. Simply leave it at the restaurant's doorstep and walk away, he begged.
There was even a $2,500 reward at one point. But the bust had to be returned before the anniversary of Adela Gonzmart's death.
The bust had been displayed outside the restaurant in a spot out of view of surveillance cameras along Seventh Avenue.
Whoever snatched the bust apparently dumped it in a grassy lot at 24th Street N and Fifth Avenue E, where Thomas found it the day after it was stolen.
Not knowing its significance, the woman put it in her car and took it to her home in the 2300 block of E Fifth Avenue, Newman said.
Thomas, who could not be reached for comment Sunday, has never eaten at the Columbia, Newman said. She had no idea what she had found.
When Thomas' family members visited Sunday and saw the bust, they told her what it was and called police.
Investigators dusted the bust for prints, then returned it to the Columbia. There were no suspects Sunday.
"All in all, it was in great shape," Newman said. "The bust wasn't cracked at all. It wasn't broken or ripped anywhere."
Richard Gonzmart planned to inspect it for the first time today.
He said he had planned a meeting this week with an artist to re-create the bust of his mother."
"We're very happy that the woman who found it realized what she had and called the police," he said.
--Kevin Graham can be reached at 813 226-3433 or kgraham@sptimes.com