What if you found your family photo hanging as a bar’s decoration?

Our households are filled with memorabilia. These sentimental items hold far more value than their monetary worth. But they’re generally things that are kept private, neatly tucked away in storage boxes or albums under the bed.

That’s why it was a very strange night out for Katy Ryan when she saw spotted a photo of a familiar face hanging in the uptown Dallas bar where she was meeting with friends. Amongst other pictures and portraits was a painting that caught her eye.

But it wasn’t just any painting.

It was a portrait of Katy’s mother during her teen years.

Katy was baffled by the discovery.

Especially because she had no recollection of her family ever selling such things. But it turns out Katy may have just solved a family mystery.

Back in March 2006, the house of Betsy Daniels, Katy’s mother, had been robbed. Betsy’s University Park home was broken into while she was at church – and amongst the items taken was the portrait of her teenage self.

It would be the last time they’d see the painting until Katy’s serendipitous encounter.

“That is my mother; that is our painting,” Ryan told CBS DFW, recalling the incident.

“Why is it on the wall here at the Bowen House? It’s almost like I saw a ghost or something.”

But as much as she wanted to bring the portrait back with her to tell her mother this unbelievable news, the painting was technically the property of Bowen House now.

When Ryan attempted to explain the situation, the owner of the bar kind of laughed it off.

Fortunately, Ryan has ample evidence to support her strange claim. She went back to the bar and showed a photo of her step-dad posing in front of the same painting before it was stolen.

Bowen House said they bought the painting from an antique store in Dallas.

They had been shopping for decorative items for the bar. The portrait, meanwhile, was commissioned back in 1957.

And even if the painting didn’t have a significant monetary value, the bar owner knew the painting should stay with the family.

Bowen House returned the painting to Katy’s mom and took it one step further.

In order to immortalize the otherwise tall-sounding tale, Daniel Alqassen, the bar owner, wanted to make coasters that would bear the image of the painting.

“We are actually going to get coasters made of that painting because we just loved it,” he said to CBS DFW.

“We want to kind of keep that story alive and kind of tell people about it.”

So when you end up in a Dallas bar and see this face under your cold one, know that this was an epic story of how a stolen painting ended back in its owner’s hands all thanks to a daughter who decided to go out for drinks.

If it was luck or destiny, we’ll never know, but we’ll all drink to that.

Watch how Katy solved the decades-old mystery of the whereabouts of her mother’s portrait!

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Source: YouTube – CBSDFW, CBS DFW, Facebook – Bowen House Dallas