BORN just days after thousands troops left our shores bound for Gallipoli, Gladys Easton (nee Higgins) holds a somewhat unique place in Australian history.
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Mrs Easton, who celebrated her 100th birthday last November, was not only born at roughly the same time Australia’s involvement in the First World War began, but she is thought to be the only living Australian to have a sibling killed in action during the war.
Mrs Easton’s older brother William Bruce Higgins was reported missing in action on July 20, 1916, during fierce fighting on the Western Front at Fromelles.
It was not until 92 years later, long after the death of her remaining siblings, that Gladys finally discovered what had happened to her brother.
Gladys and her twin sister Doris were barely a year-old when William, the eldest of 11 children, left the family farm at Heatherdale on the Gloucester River to fight in the Great War.
Private Higgins, a horse driver in the 30th Australian Infantry Battalion, sailed for Europe aboard the HMAT Beltana on November 9, 1915.
According to his Australian Red Cross wounded and missing enquiry bureau file, Private Higgins was involved in fierce fighting during the Battle of Fromelles ‘well up in the communication trench when a raid was made; (the Australian troops) bombarded the Germans and in the counter attack Higgins got cut off and was taken prisoner’.
In late 1916 a communication was received from the Germans which included Private Higgins’ identity disc and a report confirming he had been killed in action at Fromelles.
After the war his grave could not be located and he was commemorated on the VC Corner Australian Cemetery Memorial in Fromelles in northern France.
Gladys grew up never knowing what had happened to her brother.
She married Leith Easton and the couple spent many years at Belbora, before moving to Newcastle.
Leith died in 1984 and Gladys eventually moved in with her daughter Janice in the Upper Hunter.
In 2008, nine decades after Private Higgins’ death, a burial ground was located at Pheasant Wood, France, containing the remains of 250 British and Australian soldiers.
A DNA sample from Gladys revealed that one of the 250 men buried in the grave was her brother, William.
Two years later, members of the extended Higgins family were invited to attend a memorial service at Fromelles where Private Higgins was finally laid to rest in a marked grave.
