Marjorie Ann “Marjie” Mahar has told her family’s story in Arlington, Va., the Tennessee House of Representatives and even Seoul, South Korea.
But, on Monday, she told it at the place where it all began — and perhaps where it was most meaningful to her — in the Alle-Kiski Valley.
During Lower Burrell’s Memorial Day Service outside the American Legion, Mahar, of White House, Tenn., talked about her older brother, Roland Lee Bowser, who left the family’s home in Mount Vernon, New Kensington, in 1950 to serve in the Korean War.
Bowser, 20, died in captivity in North Korea in June 1951. Mahar, the youngest of eight siblings, was 2 at the time.
In 1956, Bowser’s remains were sent to Hawaii and buried as Unknowns in the National Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu.
For Mahar and her family, things remained a mystery. In 2003, she was contacted by the federal government, who requested DNA samples to put in a database to find matches for unknown soldiers’ remains. Marjie and her brother, Paul Bowser, attended Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency meetings with hopes they would find closure.
In 2019, Mahar and Bowser, of Dadeville, Ala., were invited to Seoul by the South Korean government for a heroes’ remembrance ceremony. There, Mahar read a letter recalling when her family found out Roland was killed and reflecting on his sacrifice. She read the same letter last year to the Tennessee House of Representatives and Monday in Lower Burrell.
“Roland, it is so very important for me to tell you that you have never been forgotten, that you have always been loved and deeply missed,” Mahar read. “There was never a family celebration, a holiday or just our day-to-day lives that you were not remembered. … Even though I don’t remember you, you have been the missing piece of our family.”
The family was notified in March of last year that Roland had been positively identified. A graveside service with full military honors was held in August at Arlington National Cemetery.
Family members from across the country visited Arlington to pay their respects to Bowser and to reconnect with each other after many years. Korean War chaplains and researchers met with Mahar to make sure her brother received the recognition he earned, and Bowser was posthumously awarded the Ambassador of Peace Medal. In September, Mahar and her husband, Bob, were invited to the White House for a Gold Star families remembrance event.
“After Arlington, someone had said to Aunt Marjie, are you done now?” said Linda Shields of Plum. Shields’ mother, the late Paula May Bowser Shields, was one of Roland’s sisters. “And (Mahar) said, ‘I would like to do it at home.’”
Shields coordinated with the American Legion to include the family in the parade and for Mahar to read her letter to Roland aloud. The Legion honored the Gold Star families of Bowser and Sgt. Vinson Alan Pelisari. About 30 Bowser family members, some from as far as California and South Florida, were in attendance.
“It was amazing,” Shields said. “I realized that. I didn’t know my Uncle Roland, these people didn’t know him, but they were more than willing to honor him.”
Mahar stayed at a short-term rental that once held her elementary school, Mount Vernon Elementary, and was just a block away from where she grew up on Keystone Drive.
“Yes, he came home to Arlington, but now he’s home,” Mahar said. “He’s honored where he needed to be, and that, I think, is the best part.”