Despite frightening four generations of the Nader family, a long-lost statue of Saint Pantaleon survived for decades to finally be delivered to the Italian shrine it was always meant to inhabit, according to a NewsWorks report by Peter Crimmins.

Exton residents Ed and Kathleen Nader will return to Montauro, Italy, this Fall to celebrate the statue’s arrival for the popular feast day in Saint Pantaleon’s name.

It turns out that the life-sized portrayal of the patron saint of doctors was commissioned to a Massachusetts artist, but its delivery to Italy only made it as far as Philadelphia, where it stayed with Ed Nader’s great-grandmother.

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“We were so frightened of that statue,” he said. “My mother, me, my aunt, her children, my children.”

But the people of Montauro are far from apprehensive about its discovery during the Naders’ recent vacation to Italy.

“We are thrilled. I feel like I know why we have it, why Eddie’s parents and grandparents have kept this. There was a reason,” said Kathleen Nader, who is the facilities manager for the Chester County Economic Development Council.

“It’s our obligation now to get it back to them. It is God’s will. I never questioned it. It’s just, like — yes — that’s what we do. We send it back.”

Read more of the story behind the statue of Saint Pantaleon from NewsWorks here.

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