Seventeen years after Warren G. Unholz died, he is finally getting his wish to be buried with his wife in Forest Lawn.
The World War II veteran died at 72 in January 1994, four years after his wife passed away, but his ashes have remained unclaimed on the shelf of a local funeral home.
Thanks to a new state law and the continued efforts of a local group determined to honor forgotten veterans, Unholz and nearly a dozen other veterans will be buried with military honors later this month.
Before he died, the printing executive had asked a relative to have him buried in the grave he had intended to share with his wife, Patricia R. Colvin Unholz.
The problem was that the relative entrusted with carrying out his final wishes unexpectedly died, leaving no one in charge to see to it that Unholz was interred in Forest Lawn.
As for the ashes of the other veterans, their unclaimed remains were found at a West Seneca funeral home and will be taken to Bath National Cemetery in Steuben County for interment.
Members of the local Patriot Guard Riders‘ Veteran Recovery Program have been in touch with local funeral homes in their continuing efforts to identify ashes of individuals who served in the armed forces.
Their job became easier on Veterans Day last year, when a state law was enacted that allows the unclaimed ashes of service members to be buried without permission from family members.
The law was needed because it often is difficult to find relatives of veterans whose remains have gone unclaimed.
“A group of volunteers from the Veteran Recovery Program have started visiting various funeral homes throughout our region to work with them in identifying the ashes of our unclaimed veterans, and, as of right now, we have found [the remains of] 13,” said Linda J. Hastreiter, Region 1 coordinator for the recovery program.
In addition to the 12 located at Sieck & Mast Funeral Home in West Seneca, the remains of Unholz were located at Amigone Funeral Home in the Town of Tonawanda.
So on Wednesday, Unholz’s remains will be placed in the grave with those of his wife, who was buried in Forest Lawn in 1990. Two days later, in Bath National Cemetery, most of the veterans’ ashes from West Seneca will be interred.
Unholz’s remains were also going to be buried in Bath, but then research showed he had a family plot in Forest Lawn, Hastreiter explained.
And the more Hastreiter thought about the Army veteran’s wishes to be laid to rest with his wife, she said, the more she felt that the burial in Bath was not the best answer.
She contacted Assemblyman Sam Hoyt, D-Buffalo, asking whether he could assist. The assemblyman spoke with officials at Forest Lawn, and within 24 hours, arrangements were made to carry out the late veteran’s final wishes.
“I was informed by Forest Lawn officials that they would bury Warren in the family plot with his wife for free,” Hastreiter said, adding that the officials went one better.
“They also told me that they will bury any honorably discharged veteran that the Veteran Recovery Program identifies free of charge as long as they have relatives already buried at one of their four cemeteries.”
As for the dozen unclaimed urns from West Seneca, Veteran Recovery Program workers located families of three of the veterans who, when told about the forgotten remains, decided to conduct private burials.
The remains of eight of the others veterans will be buried in Bath at 1 p.m. June 24. Those veterans are Paul P. Burzynski, Francis M. Eldridge, Ronald Keough and Michael A. Miller, all Navy; Charles B. O’Hara, Marine Corps; and Kenneth A. Bush, Paul M. Fantas and Joseph F. Gavin, all Army.
Efforts to confirm the military status of Richard E. Keller, whose remains were among the dozen, are continuing, according to Hastreiter.
“His death certificate states he was a World War II veteran,” she said, “but we need further proof of veteran status for a proper burial.”
