FOR 45 years, she single-handedly raised her 11 children after her husband's death while running a successful business.

Little is known of Mrs Erma Sutandi, 88, the matriarch of a Chinese Indonesian family.

But her death in Singapore has thrust her family into the spotlight after her children squabbled over where her final resting place should be.

A family friend, who declined to be identified, said that the family is from "the upper strata of Indonesian society".

Their wealth is obvious from the cars they showed up in at the Mount Vernon funeral parlour - premium Continental marques like Mercedes-Benzes and BMWs.

And it seems that Mrs Sutandi had a great love for gold jewellery. The friend said the elderly woman had a stash of jewellery which she had saved up over the years.

While he heard about the jewellery even before she came to Singapore about five years ago, he has not seen the gold himself.

He estimated that she has about 100kg of gold jewellery. It would have a street value of about $4.7 million based on current gold prices, estimated a jeweller here.

But no one knows for certain where the jewellery is, the friend added. A family member, who declined to be named, said Mrs Sutandi was a smart and shrewd businesswoman who ran a company dealing with telecommunications equipment in Bandung with her husband.

When her husband died about 45 years ago, she took on the sole responsibility of running the company.

To add on to that, she had to bring up her three sons and eight daughters all by herself.

Later on, she handed the business over to her sons. "She was a kind and patient mother who takes good care of her children," the relative said.

Today, all her children are successful entrepreneurs, but it's not known what kind of businesses they are involved in. Internet searches on their names revealed little.

In life, Mrs Sutandi was her family's pillar of strength and the glue that kept them together.

Now, her death has split her children into two groups, with one wanting to bury her in Singapore and the other wanting to take the body back to her hometown of Bandung to be buried there with her husband.

Her body lies in limbo inside a casket at Mount Vernon after the warring siblings engaged lawyers to ascertain who has the legal rights to the body. (See report on facing page.)

One family member said that a court here has ordered that the body cannot be removed until both parties come to an amicable decision.

This court order could not be verified. Meanwhile, the divided family members are stuck in a stalemate, with neither side wanting to back down.

Mrs Sutandi was to have been buried at Choa Chu Kang cemetery on Tuesday, but the opposing group prevented the hearse from leaving Mount Vernon by blocking the road with two cars.

Even the police were called in, and the two cars were subsequently removed.

The opposing group mostly comprises family members who flew here from Indonesia after hearing of her death. They want her body to be sent back to Bandung where she was born.

Its costs about $1,000 for each day that the body remains at Mount Vernon. On Tuesday, the different family members sat apart at opposite ends of the funeral parlour, keeping guard over the body.

Some were wailing and holding on to the coffin to prevent the undertakers from moving it to the hearse.

Yesterday, the mood was less tense.

Only one set of family members was at the parlour - the ones who wanted her to be buried in Indonesia.

This standoff is surely not what their mother wanted and it must be hard for her family as well in their time of grief.

Mrs Sutandi was diagnosed with lung cancer about five years ago and she decided to stay in Singapore for the long term to undergo chemotherapy for her condition.

While here, she lived with her children, a son and a daughter, who are both Singapore permanent residents. It is understood that they want to bury her here.

She was responding well to treatment and her death came as a shock, said another family member.

Hence, the family did not have any prior discussions about her burial plans. The 15 or so wreaths for the late matriarch outside the funeral parlour were an indication of the family's efforts to stay low-key.

The wreaths were all devoid of names and details. It looked like those details were deliberately removed.

This article was first published in The New Paper.