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Sofia Gawron is remembered by her former neighbours as a tough woman. "She was r ough, no question," says a friend from the southwest Saskatchewan town of Shackl eton, where Mrs. Gawron lived with her husband Tadeus (Ted) in the late 1960s. " She had a violent side. Everyone here loves the story of how she chased a young man--he was interested in her daughter Alice--down the road waving a meat cleave r. Sofia didn't put up with a lot of crap." Exactly how much Mrs. Gawron was willing to put up with came into question after some of her husband's dismembered skeletal remains were found buried in the bac kyard of the couple's former Medicine Hat home on Mother's Day. On June 18, Medi cine Hat police ruled out the couple's four children as suspects in his disappea rance, but would not speculate on whether they think Mrs. Gawron might have had a hand in it. She left Medicine Hat in 1983 and now lives in the long-term care ward of the Crowsnest Pass Health Care Centre in Blairmore, 75 miles west of Let hbridge. At the request of her family, staff are not putting media calls through to Mrs. Gawron, whose age is known only to be above 70. Late in January, police automatically did a 10-year update on Mr. Gawron's outst anding file and decided to do some additional investigating; a tip led them to t he backyard. Despite the suspicious manner of Mr. Gawron's burial, Calgary medic al examiner Lloyd Denmark has yet to determine if the retired Canadian Pacific R ailways labourer was the victim of foul play. "All I can say is that the remains come from various parts of the body and they are in pieces," he says. "I won't say how they were divided up. I can say conclusively that he died of something, but what? How can you tell if a man had a heart attack if he has no heart? How c an you tell if he was strangled if he has no neck?" According to an affidavit filed by Kenneth Gawron in 1993 declaring his father t o be legally dead, Mr. Gawron separated from his wife in October 1980 when he wa s 63. After they split their cash, Mr. Gawron headed to Swift Current, Sask., to meet Joe Stolarchuk, a now-deceased friend from his CPR days. Mr. Gawron's wher eabouts between his disappearance in Swift Current and his subterrenean reappear ance are a mystery. Shortly after Mr. Gawron disappeared, rumours started circulating around Medicin e Hat that he was buried in the yard. Mrs. Gawron's activities in the ensuing ye ars did little to convince her neighbours otherwise. All around her yard she bui lt with her own hands a crude six-foot-high fence topped with barbed wire. Neigh bour Sara-Ann McMillan recounted to the Calgary Herald an incident several years ago, when a pile of soil appeared on the Gawron's driveway and the widow hauled it into the backyard with a wheelbarrow. Mr. Gawron's disappearance would not be reported to the authorities until 1987; a subsequent investigation by police uncovered nothing. Mr. Gawron was reported missing around the time Human Resources Canada contacted Mrs. Gawron and told he r to stop cashing her husband's pension cheques. "My father...instructed my moth er that she should continue to receive and cash his pension cheques," reads Kenn eth's affidavit. "My mother was informed that she did not have a legal right to cash these cheques, and she stopped doing so." Kenneth Gawron has had his own problems since his father's disappearance. Last w eek, it was revealed that RCMP in Kimberley, B.C., have a warrant out for his ar rest on charges of defrauding the local Lions Club of $5,000 in 1995. Police in Cranbrook are also looking for Kenneth on charges that he committed fraud and th eft at that city's Home Hardware store. None of the Gawrons' two sons and daughters have been willing to discuss the cas e with reporters. Very little is known about the couple, even by those claiming to be their friends. They are said to have met in Poland during the Second World War. "Quiet and ordinary," is how Joe Marik, a former boss of Mr. Gawron's duri ng his CPR days, describes him. "Humble and ordinary," says Enos Mitchell, a fri end from Shackleton. "Average," says former Medicine Hat neighbour Sharon Clugst on. Asked how the couple got along, Mr. Mitchell adds: "I was never in their hom e. They didn't socialize a lot." Mr. Marik says: "We never really knew anything about their family life. They kept to themselves a lot." Mrs. Clugston says: "I think they kept to themselves a bit." Meanwhile, Ms. Clugston is trying to think positive, remembering Mr. Gawron hiri ng himself out to mow lawns and bicycling around the neighbourhood with his wife . "I didn't believe any of the rumours, even after she built the fence," she say s. "I don't want to think about that. I think maybe he died and she didn't know what to do. I hope that's it. You know, there's no secrets on this street." Kent and Patsy Walker wish there were. They are the last of a string of owners w ho have lived at 662 Prospect Dr. SW since Mrs. Gawron left. Mrs. Walker refuses to discuss the Gawrons, or even let people into her long-notorious backyard. "I know people would like to go and look at the backyard, but it's not going to ha ppen," she told the Medicine Hat News last week. "We're just trying to keep a li d on it." --Davis Sheremata