This Christmas, a north shore family is desperately searching for their 82-year-old grandmother’s dress she hoped to be buried in.
Brian Carr reached out to Boston 25 for help in tracking down the dress.
He said he and his family were moving his grandmother out of her Medford home and into an assisted living facility in Arlington when the dress was accidentally put into the donate pile.
“I’ve been texting everybody all morning, ‘Hey, Christmas miracle,’” he said. “It’s been weighing on me a lot as well. I know it means a lot to her.”
His grandmother, Josephine Frontera, said she was gifted the dress more than 50 years ago by her oldest son. Her son was a teenager at the time, and paid for the dress with his first paycheck.
“At thirteen, he went to work to help me,” she explained. “It means a lot. We went through hell in life... I feel sad because I had it for all those years, and now in the end, I’m not able to use it.”
She described the simple dress as dark blue with long sleeves, a V-neck, and a tie on the back.
Carr said the dress was donated to St. Eulalia’s parish in Winchester, and most likely ended up with the Society of St. Vincent DePaul’s — a national nonprofit with five locations in Massachusetts.
He added, “It would mean everything for me to get it back to my grandmother.”
Frontera is battling COPD and pulmonary fibrosis.
She said she’s always planned to be buried in the dress when she passes away.
This Christmas, she was surrounded by love and a family that’s desperately asking for help in finding her prized possession.
“I know they’d do everything for me,” she finished about her family. “I’ll do everything for them, everything, no matter what it is.”
Boston 25 reached out to St. Eulalia and SSVP Wednesday and are waiting to hear back.
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