Death of Dick Cleary. The death occurred on Thursday, 14th November, 1968, of Harold Laurence (Dick) Clcary, aged 45 years. Dick was born in Bourke and educated at the Bourke Schools. At the age of 18 years he joined the 2nd A.I.F. and, served in Darwin and New Guinea from where he was invalided home three years later and went to reside in Melbourne. In 1948 he married Hazel Karlstrom, of Elwood. At the age of 27 years Dick suffered a stroke which weakened his health and two years later he was the 9th patient in Australia to undergo a heart operation. In 1956 he suffered a severe stroke which left him paralysed down the right side. He established a business manufacturing crystals which he carried on for some years despite the handicap left to him after the second stroke, until five years ago when he was forced to retire by further ill health. Dick had been an inmate of the Heidelberg Repatriation Hospital for three months prior to his death and was planning on having another operation on his heart. He leaves a sorrowing wife, Hazel, and three children, Michael, Janine and Andrew. He also leaves three brothers, Jack (Bourke), Greg (Brisbane) and Tom (Melbourne), and three sisters, Madge, Dot (Mrs. Wilson) and Phyllis, all of Melbourne, and one step-sister, Doris (Mrs. Sullivan), of Molong. Dick's youngest sister, Joan (Mrs. Booth) predeceased him on 12th September, 1968. After a Service Funeral Dick's ashes were placed in the Wall of Remembrance at the Springvale Necropolis.
[Western Herald 1968-11-29 (Bourke, NSW)]