Fowler's niece to be at Sunday burial

The niece of Gladys Winifred Fowler says she'll be at her aunt's burial on Sunday, 92 years after the New Brunswick woman died in England as an 18-year-old.

Jane Fowler Morse said all her life she believed her aunt was buried at the Hammondvale cemetery near Sussex, along with most of her immediate family. There is a granite monument there, inscribed with Fowler's name.

"We had no idea she wasn't buried there," Fowler Morse told CBC News on Wednesday. "It was a shock."

Fowler, the daughter of New Brunswick MP George Fowler, died in London in 1917 of heart problems. At the time,the MP was a lieutenant-colonel serving with the 13th Battalion Canadian Infantry in the First World Warwho hadmoved his family to England.

It's not known why Fowler's body remained in a crypt at the Kensal Green Cemetery in England for almost a century. Her body was only identified this spring inside a packing crate stored in the catacomb.

Fowler Morse said she's happy she can complete the arrangements for her aunt, even if it comes so many years after her death.

"I'm already struggling to compose myself because it's going to be very deeply moving," she said.

Fowler Morse said she thought it was fitting her aunt's burial will take place a few days after Remembrance Day, considering her role in the First World War.

"I learned recently that she was also aiding soldiers in the capacity of a nurse's aid or something like that a volunteer at the army hospitals in London during the war.

"The date of her return home [is] even more poignant because she is, in some sense, a casualty of the same war."

Fowler Morse said through the process of returning her aunt's body to Canada, she has discovered cousins she didn't know she had.

After Fowler's history was traced to New Brunswick, several people and organizations stepped forward to help shoulder the cost to transport her body back to Canada.

In July, Air Canada agreed to fly Fowler's remains from London to Halifax at no charge.

Rev. Alan Tapley, who will preside over the burial, said he's not surprised so many people worked to have her remains repatriated.

"Human beings have tended to treat their deceased with the greatest respect no matter the tradition, and I think we're just carrying that on," he said.

"There's a sense of caring and a sense of wanting things to be done right."