Jul. 4--MARION -- When Brigitte Meyer-Jenniges looked out at her front yard at 3430 24th Ave. on Wednesday morning, she noticed a statue she loved dearly was missing.

The figure of a young boy riding a dolphin was given to Meyer-Jenniges, 82, by her late husband, Bill Meyer, and their children in 1967. The statue is part of a fountain and sat in an ornate bowl in the front yard of their Cedar Rapids home until she moved to Marion in 1996.

Bill Meyer died in 1975.

Meyer-Jenniges' family gave the boy and dolphin to her because it resembled statues in castle gardens in parks in her native Berlin. She was a World War II war bride who moved to America with her husband, Bill.

The boy and the dolphin had to weigh at least 45 pounds, she said.

"Thank goodness they didn't take the water pump," she said. MeyerJenniges and her husband, Josef, have since taken out the water pump as a precaution.

In the 13 years MeyerJenniges has lived in the Marion home, she has never had any problems like this.

"You never know," she said, "especially these days, with jobs being lost." She doesn't know if it was stolen to be sold or if it was just a prank. Either way, she wants her statue back.

"I would be so tickled if they would return it," she said. "I like Iowa because it is an honest state."

-- Contact the writer: (319) 398-5860 or e-mail angie.

holmes@gazcomm.com

-----

To see more of The Gazette, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.gazetteonline.com.

Copyright (c) 2009, The Gazette, Cedar Rapids, Iowa

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.

A service of YellowBrix, Inc.