This article appeared on Florida today on February 5, 2019. 

The ashes of a Tuskegee Airman lay buried without a grave marker in quiet St. Luke's Episcopal Cemetery, near citrus groves off sleepy North Tropical Trail on Merritt Island. Now, Flight Officer Edwin "Eddie" Cowan will receive long-delayed public appreciation for his pioneering World War II service. He and Theda, his beloved late wife of 60 years, will be laid to rest together Thursday at Cape Canaveral National Cemetery. 

This time, with full military honors. "When my sister told me, I was truly surprised — but grateful. Very grateful that my dad's going to be recognized for what he deserves," said Shelley Arnold, the couple's oldest daughter. She lives in Brentwood, California. "They were buried in the cemetery on a plot where my grandmother is buried. The church did not, of course, allow markers on a plot that has already been assigned. When this gentleman found out about that, he said, 'That won't do,'" Arnold said. 

That gentleman was Ray Norman, a Brevard Veterans Memorial Center senior board member. While attending Pioneer Day festivities on north Merritt Island, the retired Army chief warrant officer three was surprised to learn that a Tuskegee Airman lay buried at the little cemetery. Norman contacted church officials and Cowan's relatives, sparking a multi-month campaign to re-inter the couple at the national cemetery. The Air Force and Tuskegee Airmen, Inc. will participate in the Cape Canaveral National Cemetery interment, and the public is invited. 

Afterward, about a dozen motorcycle groups will escort family members to an invitation-only celebration of life at the Brevard Veterans Memorial Center on Merritt Island. Nine relatives from four states are expected to attend, said Donn Weaver, chairman of the Brevard Veterans Council. A great-grandson, Michael Arnold, who is a freshman at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, will play taps on his trumpet. Brevard veterans advocates had a busy week at Cape Canaveral National Cemetery. During a Saturday ceremony, the "cremains" of 19 veterans — including one who sat unclaimed since 1973 — and six spouses of veterans were laid to rest with full military honors. Those ashes had languished inside funeral homes across East Central Florida. 

The Tuskegee Airmen were a groundbreaking group of America’s first African-American military flight crews and ground crews, during an era of segregation and bigotry. "Most African-American soldiers and sailors were restricted to labor battalions or other support positions. One experiment in the U.S. Army Air Forces, however, demonstrated conclusively that African-Americans — if given equal opportunities and training — could fly in, command and support combat units as well as anyone," the National Museum of the United States Air Force website states. 

"These men, known as the 'Tuskegee Airmen,' served with distinction in combat, and they contributed to the eventual integration of the U.S. armed services, with the U.S. Air Force leading the way," the website states. Their aerial heroics were later featured in the 2012 Lucasfilm movie "Red Tails" starring Terrence Howard and Cuba Gooding Jr. Cowan flew more than 500 hours as a B-25 Mitchell bomber pilot, training for deployment during the waning months of World War II with the 477th Bombardment Group. He did not fly in combat. 

After World War II, Cowan worked as a mail carrier in Cleveland, Ohio, earned bachelor's and master's degrees in education from Kent State University, and retired as a principal after a 22-year elementary school career with the Cleveland public school district. He and Theda moved in 1978 to Merritt Island, where he fished, boated and golfed. 

Two years later, in 1980, Cowan became one of the founding members of the Orlando-based Gen. Daniel "Chappie" James Jr. chapter of Tuskegee Airmen, Inc. "My father didn’t really talk about it to my sister and I too much as children. He was a pretty private person, and he was not a boaster in that respect. It really wasn’t until he retired to Florida that he joined a group of Tuskegee Airmen," Arnold said. "It wasn't until then, when he became very active, that we realized, 'Oh, wow!'" she said. Cowan died in 2009 at age 88, two years after Theda passed away at 86. 

They were married nearly 60 years, and their ashes were buried together at St. Luke's Episcopal Cemetery at the gravesite of her late mother, Rebecca "Dearie" Sams. "It was an enrichment to my life to know him and meet with him — and smoke cigars and drink Jack Daniel’s with him. It was an enrichment to watch him as he instructed his grandchildren," said son-in-law Phil Arnold, Shelley's husband and an Air Force veteran. "Remarkable man. 

Equally remarkable was his wife, who supported this self-made man. And any Tuskegee Airman that you meet, you will recognize them as self-made men," Phil Arnold said. "They were a model couple for many. His personal resolve, and her ability to support him — even though she knew some of the things he did were a little bit risky. Risky in the sense that, 'Black people just don’t do that yet. Be patient.' But he was very deliberate," he said.

EDWIN T COWAN

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