Remembering the fallen

She was walking towards the grave of one of her great uncles, who died while fighting in World War I.

John McCusker was one of three brothers who set off to fight for Australia in his early 20s. He and brother Thomas joined, trained and fought together.

"The story goes the two brothers, Thomas and John, jumped on horseback and rode all the way to Narrabri [from Warialda] which is where they had the sign up for the battalions," Mrs Dunbar said.

"One story goes they told their father but they didn't tell their mother, because it would break her heart... So they just jumped on the back of the horse and off they went, and they came home in uniform before they went away."

Mrs Dunbar said the family believes another brother Charles signed up about a year later, on his mother's request to find his brothers.

Charles arrived in England about the same time his brothers were killed in action in France.

So it goes, the boys were both shot about a metre apart from one another. John was killed and Thomas survived. Thomas then died in battle not long after.

"Charles didn't know the brothers had been shot and killed until after he got home from the war," Mrs Dunbar said.

"Mum [the boys' niece] used to tell me stories about how it ripped him up. He was a really hollow man when he came back."

During the conflict, Charles became a prisoner of war before being returned to Australia where he died in his 70s.

Last year, Mrs Dunbar retraced the steps of her great uncles killed in action.

"From when I was a little girl, my mum always told me stories about them. I also had a really close connection with their younger brother, my great uncle Wilf."

Mrs Dunbar said the trip was a moving experience.

"It was really somber and heart-wrenching," she said.

With the information and photographs she has collected, she plans to create a photo book as a lasting and treasured memory of her great uncles, to pass on to her children and the generations after.

"There was something mystical or mysterious about their story, and a sadness about it yet a closeness to it, because the two brothers were really close," Mrs Dunbar said.

"Their memory is not going to be forgotten, because I'm not going to let it."

Mrs Dunbar and her family will among the crowds to gather at the Jerrabomberra dawn service to remember Australia's fallen soldiers on Anzac Day, April 25.