WENDELL — After a 3,000-mile journey east, a World War II memorial honoring 36 Wendell veterans has finally returned home.

In a ceremony Wednesday afternoon, town officials, residents and veterans gathered as Wendell unveiled the recently refurbished honor roll, which was discovered earlier this year on the other side of the country in California.

For several in attendance, it was a chance to see the names of family members and friends recognized again for their service.

“It means everything to me because my family is on it,” said Del Williston, a lifelong Wendell resident. She noted that she didn’t even know this memorial had existed.

“I feel very happy it’s here,” added Penny Delorey. “It’s a very weird story.”

The full tale of the honor roll remains shrouded in mystery, as nobody is quite sure how, or when, it ended up on the West Coast. The story picks up in the early spring of this year, when Jim Gillio, a retired police officer and former city council member in Hollister, California, was scrolling through Facebook Marketplace. He came across the honor roll commemorating the service of Wendell residents.

“This doesn’t look like something that should be rotting away in someone’s garage, so I wanted to bring it home,” Gillio said in April.

Determined to return the object to its rightful home, Gillio initially contacted Wendell, North Carolina, and was eventually sent a photo of a memorial millstone in Franklin County’s Wendell, which had matching names to the item he saw for sale. The seller, Rebecca Hohmann, of Mountain View, California, purchased the memorial in Phoenix, Arizona, but has no clue how it got there.

Hohmann gave the memorial to Gillio for free and he recruited the help of U.S. Army veteran Bernie Ramirez to help restore the honor roll. Gillio gifted the memorial back to Wendell — the Selectboard accepted the donation on April 3 — and worked with Hollister’s Hazel Hawkins Memorial Hospital to have it shipped back to Massachusetts free of charge, according to Town Coordinator Glenn Johnson-Mussad.

“He was fortunate enough that the person selling it gave it to him for free and he had help restoring and he made sure we got it back,” Selectboard Chair Laurie DiDonato said. “I think it’s a unique event.”

There is, though, one more question surrounding the memorial: where is it going to go?

Johnson-Mussad said the town is open to suggestions. A few in attendance on Wednesday said the Town Hall may be the best spot for it, as it is a historical building.

“I think it’s the safest place and anybody can walk in and look at it,” Williston said.

Chris Larabee can be reached at clarabee@recorder.com.