THEY honourably served to protect their country, and now their final resting place will be given the mark it deserves.
Of the more than 1000 World War One veterans laid to rest in unmarked South Australian graves, it is believed there could be at least 13 buried at the Willaston Cemetery.
However, a collaborative effort between the Friends of the Willaston Cemetery, Gawler Returned Services League (RSL), Gawler Council, and the SA arm of the Headstone Project, has sought to give those men’s graves a headstone and memorial plaque.
Gawler RSL public officer Wayne Clarke said the focus is first on six particular graves, which will most likely receive headstones by the end of May.
In the meantime, the group is seeking relatives and descendants of the said men – surnames Bald, Matz, Hillman, Crosbie, Starkey and Grace – in the hope they will give permission for a headstone, as well as be involved in the dedication ceremony.
“A lot of these people actually worked as people in the May Foundry, or with the Marchant family, so they have a link to our town’s past,” Mr Clarke said.
“The Matz family are a well-known Gawler family and they were related to the baking industry; we feel confident there would be descendants.”
Headstone Project (SA) president John Brownlie said veterans could have ended up in an unmarked grave for a number of reasons, including family poverty.
“Many of these men died in the ’20s and ’30s and surviving family had to consider whether they put food on the table or put a monument on a grave,” he said.
“A lot of men also came back very badly broken by what had happened to them, took to the drink, became estranged from families and ended up in paupers’ graves, right across the country.
Local historian and Friends of the Willaston Cemetery member Helen Hennessy said she believes it’s important the men are remembered with the help of a headstone.
“I’ve spent years looking at the graves (in the Willaston Cemetery) and I’ve never noticed the voids,” she said.
“Every grave site has a story and …a project like this will give us those stories.”
Gawler Mayor Karen Redman said council has identified that the graves being considered all have current leases, however some of the original lease holders are deceased or have outdated contact information.
“The Headstone Project is a worthy initiative and council staff will continue to investigate ways that the Town of Gawler can support this project,” she said.
The Headstone Project began in Tasmania in 2011 and since coming to SA in 2017 has formally identified more than 70 unmarked graves for WWI servicemen, across 30 cemeteries.