Obituaries Australia

The death occurred on Tuesday, 11th inst., at his residence in Charles-street, Leichhardt, of Mr. Tom Stone, who was born at Westport, County Mayo, Ireland, in 1868, and arrived in Australia about 44 years ago. He had resided at Leichhardt during the past 20 years. He entered business in 1906 as a wholesale meat supplier, which business he carried on up to the time of his death. The funeral took place in the Catholic portion of the Waverley Cemetery on Wednesday, 12th inst. Right Rev. Monsignor McDermott officiated at the Bonett, Kissane, Sheehy and Ryan. The chief mourners were Mrs. E. Stone (widow), Misses Ursula, Honor, and Moira Stone (daughters), Mr. J. Murphy (father in-law), Mr. V. Murphy (brother-in-law), Mr. T. Murphy, Miss K. Hynes, Misses M. and L. Murphy, Mr. and Mrs. Powderly, Mr. and Mrs. Lang, Mr. and Mrs. J. Murphy, jun., Mr. and Mrs. L. Murphy, Mrs. M. Murphy and sons, Mr. and Mrs. B. Murphy.

Of the thousands who watched the sand shovelled on Tom Stone in Waverley Cemetery on Wednesday, 12th inst., the writer wondered how many knew his real greatness. He did — always; but most of all the night he died, when Tom and he threshed for the last time the "final sense of values." Tom Stone cried that night — the only time I saw him cry — and strong men's tears are hard! "Let us be practical, son" — and then his wishes as to death and burial. "They'll know I was an Irish man, son; and there'll be a few decent Irishmen to regret my passing."

There were, and a thousand others besides, for his funeral was one of the longest through Sydney's streets for many a day, and around his open grave in Waverley Cemetery were many Tom Stone would have liked to be there. Hard business men, rulers of Sydney's cattle market, who fought him hard on the fence at Homebush, and were there to acknowledge that though Tom fought hard, he never hit below the belt. A few of the very poor to whom his right hand gave what his left never knew. Priests who knew his strong soul's whiteness — the "few decent Irishmen" he wanted to regret his passing. A broken-hearted wife who knew his love, and a gentle daughter crying in anguish, "Don't let them hurt him!' She feared the soothing sand would hurt her father — big Tom Stone, so rugged, but, ah, how tender!

And so, by the long wash of Australasian seas he sleeps, with the thunder in his dead ears he longed for, for he was from Westport, by the western sea. As they lowered him down, I looked beyond the Michael Dwyer Monument to the sunlit ocean beyond, and thought of R.L.S., and "Here he lies where he longed to be" — close to the sea he loved, and the ashes and memories of the men of '98. Tom Stone was a really great Irishman. He knew beauty — for he lived it; but he loved it most in a lost cause. The fire of Shiel, the poetry of Pearse, the splendour of Plunket, the hate of Mitchel burned in the soul of this quiet, unassuming Mayo man, who said so little but wrought so mightily. But on restless nights they thrilled his dreams, and to the chosen few he spoke them sometimes in language that made one think of "mute, inglorious Milton."

Tom Stone was born great. He had an extraordinary sense of honour. Hypocrisy appalled him. He called its bluff always. Even when he did not speak his very glance unmasked it. He was straightest of all with God. The night death came so quickly, little thinking it so very near, he told the writer he was always ready — that his mind had never been sullied by an ignoble thought in all the long years of his manhood! He hoped against hope, and said: "God is good — I'll beat you all yet!" Still, with that calm precision that was always his, he insisted on speaking of death and burial. Typical of him was the cheque, the last he ever wrote, for £101. "The extra pound, is for 'exes,' he said. "The hundred is for Mass sometimes for the Irish dead, including me." May his child 's soul rest in peace.