Poinsettias taken from Shelter Island memorial – NBC 7 San Diego

Each year throughout December, community members place poinsettias, sometimes by the dozens, in front of the Tunaman’s Memorial on Shelter Island. However, this year, those plants placed to honor those lost at sea were taken, but it’s not confirmed by whom.

The tradition started more than two decades ago by Lynne Correia.

“I just quietly did it for years,” Lynne Correia said.

Lynne Correia started leaving the plants at the memorial after her husband, Gregory Correia, died in a helicopter crash during a commercial fishing trip that left from American Samoa in 1998. His body was never recovered.

“This is the only place we have to remember them,” Lynne Correia said.

Gregory Correia’s name is etched on the memorial, including that of dozens of others who were lost at sea.

“This is where the families would follow the boats in their cars and honk and wave one more time before they left San Diego,” said Evelyn Madruga Barandiaran, the president of the Portuguese Historical Center.

The organization became involved with Lynne Correia’s tradition years after it began, but now it is a holiday staple.

”I walk every day here, always passing by, kind of saying hi,” Lynne Correia said.

On Tuesday’s walk, just days after she placed the poinsettias with her three sons, daughter-in-law and grandchildren, she noticed something was missing.

“When I was walking, and I came by to check on it and saw the plants were gone,” Lynne Correia said. “I was shocked. Like I said, for over 20 years I’ve been doing this, and no one has ever taken anything.”

Despite her disbelief and disappointment, during a season of giving, she hopes that this will spark an act of kindness in others.

”Maybe they really needed it. That’s the one thing you can think is they must’ve needed it more than we do,” Lynne Correia said.

It’s a sentiment shared by others, like Madruga Barandiaran, whose family members’ names are also engraved on the memorial.

“There is more good in the world than there is bad,” Madruga Barandiaran said.

While there is no answer on who took the poinsettias from the memorial, the Port of San Diego told NBC 7 it is offering to help plant poinsettias around the memorial to prevent people from picking them up and taking them.