Obituaries Australia

It is with regret that we record the death of Zoe O'Leary who departed this life in the closing hours of the old year...

Zoe led a long and useful life and although she had more than her share of hardship and sorrow, or because of it, she had a strong, resilient character and a bright and cheerful disposition.

Zoe was born in Brisbane in 1903, the youngest of 8 children. She soon became acquainted with hardship. When only a few months old, her father was struck down by a paralysing illness which rendered him unable to do any work at all.

In those times there was no invalid pension, so her mother had to battle to support two adults and 3 children, while still tending her husband with loving care.

In Zoe's early teens the horror that was World War 1 broke out, causing further anguish for her parents when her two brothers enlisted.

At 17, Zoe left home to begin a career on the stage, but her ambitions were soon thwarted by a recession in 1919 which caused a severe slump in show business.

In 1924 Zoe married and two years later gave birth to a daughter.

Again, fate, or the economic system, brought new hardships in the Great Depression. Zoe and her husband battled around the countryside trying to earn a living but things got so bad the marriage eventually broke up and Zoe and her daughter moved to Sydney.

But cruel fate had more in store for Zoe, for at a comparatively early age her daughter, June, was crippled by arthritis and for years Zoe devoted herself to caring for June until her untimely death.

Because of her experiences, two world wars and the depression that came between, Zoe saw the need for a new social order — socialism, and she joined the Communist Party. Zoe threw herself into the struggle.

For years she worked on Tribune. She set up the committee to win the release of Lance Sharkey and was active on the committee to defend Frank Hardy.

Zoe was also in the forefront of the fight for equal rights for women. Zoe and Joan Clarke wrote the book Girl Fridays in Revolt and because of it were made "Women of the Year" in 1969 by the International Women's Day Committee.

Zoe also produced some other books, including The Desolate Market, a biography of Eric Lambert, and The Little Byron, a loving tribute to her father.

So it can be said that Zoe led a useful life and that in her timeslot in history she made her contribution to the slow but inexorable progress of the human race towards a better world, free from want and war.

The CPA was represented at her funeral by Joe Palmada.

"Mourn not the dead that in the cool earth lie
Dust unto dust
The calm sweet earth that mothers all who die
As all men must
But rather, mourn the apathetic throng
The cowed and meek
Who see the world's great anguish and its wrong
And dare not speak".