Mount Gambier Aboriginal WWI veterans receive memorials as part of The Headstone Project initiative
Ken Jones stands beside the new grave of his uncle John Westbury at Lake Terrace Cemetery in Mount Gambier. (ABC South East SA: Sam Bradbrook)
Two half-brothers who fought in the First World War now have a permanent recognition of their life and service, more than a century after they returned home.
John Brett and John Westbury, both Boandik men from South Australia's Limestone Coast, enlisted four days apart in 1916 and joined the fighting on the Western Front.
Both were wounded in action and returned home, but when they died they were both interred in the Lake Terrace Cemetery in Mount Gambier in unmarked graves.
The Lake Terrace Cemetery next to Warwar/Blue Lake in Mount Gambier is the final resting place of John Brett and John Westbury. (ABC South East SA: Bec Whetham)
Now, after the work of the half-brothers' families and dedicated volunteers from across the state, the veterans have a permanent tribute to their lives and service.
Uncle Ken Jones, John Westbury's grand-nephew, said he was proud to see his ancestors receive deserved recognition.
"Aboriginal people who died were rarely acknowledged with a headstone," he said.
"They were poverty stricken, there was racism, they were kicked out of town, they weren't particularly in a position for the families to afford to put [in] a big, flash granite or sandstone headstone.
"If they were lucky they would've had a little wooden cross that would've gone rotten within a few years."
Money, racism led to unmarked graves
The dedications of John Brett and John Westbury's graves is part of a larger initiative led by Aboriginal Veterans SA and The Headstone Project.
When many Aboriginal veterans died after returning home, a mix of racism and families not having the money for a permanent headstone meant they were interred in unmarked graves.
So far, the unmarked resting places of 11 Aboriginal veterans have been found and given permanent grave dedications in cemeteries across the state.
"I'd say for the average family, resources and finance are sometimes a challenge," Aboriginal Veterans SA co-chair and Ngarrindjeri man Uncle Frank Lampard said.
Frank Lampard (left) has been helping families of veterans in unmarked graves find closure and permanent memorials for resting places. (ABC South East SA: Sam Bradbrook)
"In any event, to actually bury the veteran where they actually like them to be interred is another issue that involves resourcing.
"So some are buried off country, which is always very sad from a cultural perspective, and all of those things are very costly."
Researching unmarked graves can take hours of investigation, mostly led by volunteers, who use death and cemetery records to locate unrecognised veterans.
The Headstone Project is also working to find unmarked graves of non-Aboriginal veterans across the state.
John Brett enlisted in 1916 when he was 40 years old and died in 1946. (ABC South East SA: Sam Bradbrook)
The Headstone Project SA president John Brownlie said there could be as many as 3,000 veterans buried in unmarked graves in the state.
"With 900 cemeteries in South Australia, if we just find three per cemetery then we're looking at the better part of 3,000," he said.
"At places like Port Augusta we found 19, at Port Pirie we found 22 and given the size of Mount Gambier I'd be surprised if there wouldn't be 30-35 in this cemetery alone."
Connecting families with their pasts
Both John Brett and John Westbury's headstones are inscribed with the phrase "for they were fishers", a nod to their Boandik heritage and love for fishing.
Mr Jones said he was thrilled to discover the love for fishing his father passed on to him had started generations earlier.
"I became a fisherman and a fisheries officer and I was quite tickled to discover my uncle was caught [by police] traditionally fishing with an old net in the Glenelg River," he said.
Uncle Ken Jones says learning about this ancestors through their grave dedications has helped him identify where his love of nature started. (ABC South East SA: Sam Bradbrook)
"It was quite funny because they took the net off him, he couldn't sell or keep the fish. Under the traditional fishing rights as we know it now he was quite right to be doing that fishing."
Despite sometimes only meeting the families veterans on the day of the commemoration, Mr Lampard has a personal connection to each new gravestone.
His brother, a Vietnam War veteran, was buried in an unmarked grave due to his family not having the money for a funeral and headstone.
It's something Mr Lampard has since changed as part of the program.
About 70 people attended the gravesite dedications for John Brett and John Westbury. (ABC South East SA: Sam Bradbrook)
"A lot of people have approached me and said 'Frank, your team is absolutely brilliant and outstanding, but brother, there's a lot of work still to be done," he said.
"In a funny sort of way, I do take it a bit personal and by the time I get in the car and head towards home again, I just feel absolutely wonderful.
"I know I've done a good turn for the interred veteran's family and hopefully for the community across the board."