6-foot gnome stolen from home; Seward family offers $1,000 reward

SEWARD, Neb. (KLKN) – A Seward family is offering a $1,000 cash reward for their stolen 6-foot garden gnome.

It stood on the edge of the Hartmann family farm outside of town, but they noticed it was missing on Monday.

The towering fiberglass lawn ornament has blue eyes, a pointy red hat and a white beard.

“It might seem small to somebody, but it’s a big deal to us,” Dee Saucier-Hartmann said.

The gnome was a statement piece for a fairy garden right beside the highway by the Hartmanns’ property.

The farm has been in the family for more than 100 years.

Decades of memories have been made on the farm, and some of the most special ones are with an old tree.

The tree was a big part of 92-year-old Doris Hartmann’s childhood. Her father planted it when she was a baby.

“We had a tornado come through two years ago, and it broke the tree down,” Saucier-Hartmann said. “We had to take it down.”

She told her husband to save as much of the tree as he could because of how much it meant to Doris.

“She was very upset about it,” Saucier-Hartmann said. “We thought we could make something out of it, so we developed a fairy garden.”

Doris has Alzheimer’s. Every time she visits the fairy garden, it makes her happy.

And it’s not just Doris who enjoys it.

Saucier-Hartmann said people drive by all the time and stop to take pictures with the gnomes, especially the giant one.

“We enjoy watching them,” she said. “My mother-in-law really gets a kick out of it.”

When the Hartmanns noticed it was gone, they were devastated.

“Our farm and our garden, it’s a tribute to my mother-in-law and my deceased father-in-law,” Saucier-Hartmann said. “So it’s hard to see them do something like this.”

The family is offering the cash reward for any information that helps them find the gnome and the person who stole it.

Saucier-Hartmann has a message for the thieves: “Just bring him back. It’s not just ours; it belongs to the community. And we’ll turn the other cheek.”

Once it’s returned, the family will anchor it in cement.