Woman reunited with wedding photo lost in Sandy debris

Massapequa resident Lorraine Hopes, 58, lost most of her old photos during superstorm Sandy, when three-foot floodwaters washed away boxes of memories and keepsakes stored in her garage.

But on Saturday, Hopes and her mother, Sue Fischetti, 86, were reunited with a 65-year-old photo of Fischetti and her father, Charles Fischetti, on her wedding day. Leah Welsh, 34, who lives only a few houses away from Hopes, had found the photo after the storm, misplaced it, then launched a search to find the owner after running across it last week.

“We lost everything, and my mother, she only had one or two photos left of her life after that,” Hopes said. “When she saw it again, she kissed the photo, she was so happy. This is truly a blessing.”

Newsday and News 12 reported the story Friday, which caught Fischetti’s attention. Fischetti and Hopes reached out to Welsh that night.

“When I got that phone call, and realized I had found the owner, I just got the chills, I started crying,” Welsh said. “I was determined to find the owner, and after so long it was unbelievable that it happened, and it happened so quickly.”

What is even more baffling to Hopes is how the old photo got to Welsh’s lawn in the first place. The picture was originally kept in Fischetti’s wedding album, wrapped underneath plastic and binding, which Hopes described as “some kind of stitching.” Hopes speculates that the photo became loose from the album during the storm, and was swept away in the floodwaters, to eventually wash up on Welsh’s lawn.

The photo was the only one of close to 100 photos from the album, which remains lost.

“There can be miracles,” Hopes said. “I am grateful for this young woman [Welsh] to hold on to this photo for so long.”