N.J. man reunites woman with her lost rosary, 74 years later

Diana Borja was 7 years old when she lost the rosary she received for her first communion.

The year was 1946. Her family lived in Edison. Now, the 81-year-old woman resides in Iowa, where last week she received a lucky phone call — after 74 years, her keepsake had been found and was coming back to her.

This all courtesy of Daniel Jurgens, of Woodbridge, who found the rosary while metal-detecting last week, and set out to find the item’s namesake, or at least a family member of hers.

Jurgens, 64, who frequently goes metal-detecting as a hobby, got a hit last Thursday while searching in Dudash Park in Edison.

He said he dug about nine inches down in the ground and found a small, silver compact, which featured an engraved image of the Virgin Mary. Inside the container was a sterling silver rosary, engraved with the name “Diana” and the date May 5, 1946.

“So now I’m on a mission to get this back to Diana,” Jurgens told NJ Advance Media, retelling the story. “So I figured, well, if she was a little girl in 1946, this could be her communion.”

Jurgens’ first step was to contact the secretary at Our Lady of Peace Church in Edison, near where he found the container. The secretary called Jurgens back three days later, and confirmed a girl named Diana made her first communion on May 5, 1946.

The girl’s name was Diana Antonides. So Jurgens started researching on the internet and Ancestry.com, and ended up finding the girl’s entire family in the 1940 census, when she was just a year old. Digging even further, he found Diana’s address was three blocks from Our Lady of Peace Church. The details began to fall into place.

Jurgens learned Diana married in 1958 to Salvador Borja. Searching Diana Borja didn’t yield any promising results, so he then searched Salvador’s name and was led to a few results on him, including his obituary.

“All this time I don’t know if Diana’s still alive,” Jurgens said.

But he did notice the name of the funeral home and the names of Salvador’s children, so he contacted the funeral home—located in Clinton, Iowa—and a couple days later, he received a call from one of Diana’s sons.

“And I guess at first he thought I was some crazy person,” Jurgens said with a laugh.

“He said he’ll ask his mom and he’ll get back to me,” he added, “and then the daughter called me back and it turns out that 81-year-old Diana, still alive, lives in Clinton County, Iowa.”

Jurgens said he spoke with both of them on the phone and mailed out the rosary soon after. It’s on its way to Iowa, he said Friday morning.

He also received a message from the daughter about how excited Diana was, which said, “Thanks so much for all you did to track us down! Mom is very happy that you found her rosary, it was a gift from her godmother.”

“They’re very happy over there in Iowa that this is going to happen,” Jurgens said earlier this week. “The internet helped me out tremendously.”

Jurgens also posted a photo of the rosary in the Historical Association of Woodbridge Township Facebook group last week, early on in his search, which has received more than 770 shares.

When contacted by phone Friday morning, Diana said she didn’t even remember the rosary until they received a call from Jurgens, but she was surprised when he contacted them.

She confirmed she attended the school, Our Lady of Peace, when she was younger.

Her son Kris, who she lives with, said they wanted to thank Jurgens for all his work finding them.

When asked if she was excited to get the rosary back, Diana had a simple answer: “Yes, I never thought I’d see that again,” she said.

Editor’s Note: This story has been updated to correct the last name of Diana Borja.

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Brianna Kudisch may be reached at bkudisch@njadvancemedia.com. Tell us your coronavirus story or send a tip here.