CASPER, Wyo. — Remigio “Ray” Barela didn’t know many of the hundreds of people who attended his funeral, including the family members sitting in the front row.
The massive turnout for the 101-year-old Marine’s funeral in Casper, Wyo., was in large part due to a social media campaign to bring attention to the service after the funeral home couldn’t immediately locate family members for the reclusive veteran.
“Those situations are difficult, but unfortunately it happens,” said Joey Casada, a funeral director at Bustard’s Funeral Home in Casper who handled Barela’s service.
Casada said he was prepared to be one of only two people in attendance for Barela’s funeral, along with Randy Knudson, Barela’s former landlord who’s looked after the senior veteran for the last few years.
“I had already known that he didn’t have any family,” Knudson said. “He never talked about his family at all.”
During a brief ceremony inside the chapel at Oregon Trail Veteran’s Cemetery on Friday, no seats were unfilled. Several hundred people stood outside to listen to the ceremony on a speaker.
Days before the funeral, some social media sleuths and others were able to track down potential family members. Several of them came hundreds of miles for the funeral.
Anita Colon, who said she is Barela’s niece, said she found a photo on social media and traced it back to her uncle.
“I remember when I was little he went and joined the Marines and that was it. We could find him nowhere,” Colon said.
Colon, who now lives in Pueblo, Colo., remembers growing up with her uncle in the San Luis Valley. But when she was 10, Barela disappeared leaving her mother to search for him.
“We used to hear her cry,” she said. “And we tried to look for him…put it in the Denver Post…everything…but we could never find him.”
She said her mother, who has since passed away, would be relieved.
“I feel happy because I feel like my mom is happy because she finally found him,” she said.
Colon said she is grateful for Knudson and his friendship with Barela over the years.
Knudson said when Barela lived in his apartment building the two shared many talks in the lobby. When Barela got sick and had to move into nursing care, he continued to watch out for him.
He said Barela talked often about his service and was incredibly proud of it.
“He said they gave him a gun, threw him off the boat and said don’t get killed,” he said.
“He would have loved the honor,” Knudson said, reflecting on the crowd of people who showed up for the funeral.
"It made me want to cry that [there are] that many people who cared about someone who didn’t think he had a friend in the world,” he said.
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