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Oscar Stack BEM
Lee Francis:
Oscar Stack was born in Fremantle in 1901, second son of John and Fanny Stack, and lived there all his life. He had a barber shop at 51-53 Mandurah Road (South Terrace), between Florence (King William) and Ada Streets. And cycled home to the house next door to the church in High Street every day for lunch. He sang regularly to the patients at Fremantle Hospital, from memory usually after church Sunday afternoons.
He was a really fast barber. The story goes that the tram turnaround was near the shop, and that the conductor could hop off, have a haircut, and be back on the tram in the time it took to turn around.
In this photo of the FCC in 1976 (Library ref. no. 1080) Oscar Stack is sitting on the right-hand end of the front row. The Fremantle Library caption includes the identification of people in the photo, as follows.
Library:
Back row, from left: F Del Rosso; K J Gleeson; R E Higham; Mark I Staniford; Peter W Newman; R A Cotton; J A Cattalini; Donald Whittington; J A Minervini; R B Warren. Front row: G McGill; J Boddy; Les C Lauder; S M Stone; William A McKenzie (Mayor); A Whittington; J Sowden; E K Fletcher; Oscar F E Stack.
< Clip from Wise's post office directories for 1949, showing O Stack as a hrdrsr at 51-53 Mandurah Road (now South Terrace).
Oscar Stack was a member of the Fremantle City Council in 1967, and his name was given to the street which would have continued Fothergill Street up to Montreal Street, had it not been interrupted by the rocky outcrop above the Stevens St reserve and the tanks of the bunkering service, not to mention an electricity sub-station. Oscar Stack was the pastor of the Reorganised Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints which 1945-1988 used the former Fremantle Grammar School building at 200 High St.
Malcolm Yates:
Oscar Stack was the minister at a church opposite the Monument and he also had a barber's shop. He had a beautiful voice and he had a barbershop quartet. The four of them used to go around and sing in the hospital wards on Sunday afternoons after visting hours ended at 4pm.
Malcolm Yates [born 1936] in 'Fifty years on', in Karen Lang & Jan Newman 2004, Wharf Rats and Other Stories: 100 Years of Growing up in Fremantle, FPS: 182.
It's ironical that Oscar Stack's name was also given to the Avenue which runs next to one of the RC sections in the Fremantle Cemetery, given that he was an RLDS Pastor.
Oscar Stack was a foundation member of the Fremantle Society.
Other Stacks
I'll mention a couple of other Stacks here, via entries from Erickson.
Erickson:
STACK, Thomas, b. 1838, arr. 26.12.1860 per Escort with wife & 1 child, m. Honoria FITZGERALD b. 1835. Chd. Maurice b. 1860, Thomas John b. 1861, Maryann Margaret b. 1864 (York). Farm labourer. ?This man to SA per Sea Ripple with family.
Oldman:
Thomas Joseph Stack, b. 1833, quartermaster in the Land Transport Corps (Crimean War), arrived Escort 1860, was a soldier in the Turkish Contingent.
Erickson:
STACK, Thomas, b. 1844 (Irel), d. 10.2.1896 (York), arr. 25.5.1858 per Emma Eugenia with elder brother Timothy, m. 22.9.1863 (Frem RC) Mary (Martha) TUFT (TUFFTS), dtr. of John (of Armagh, Ireland). Chd. Mary Ann b. 1864 (Frem RC), Louisa Maud b. 1869 (Dongara) d. 1943, Isabella b. 1876 d. 1897 (York RC), James Joseph Thomas b. 1878 (Frem RC), Emily, Nellie, John. Police Constable, Fremantle 1862-. In 1864 nominated his sisters-in-law Elizabeth Tuft b. 1844 & Alice b. 1845. To Champion Bay 1865. Geraldton bt. Town Lot 1868. Publican at York. To Lower Blackwood 1879. Employed a T/L man 1870 at Dongara & a T/L man at: "Wootaling" York. His wife was postmistress at Blackwood 1874-1886.
References, links, acknowledgements
Many thanks to Stack relative Lee Francis for corrections and more information about Oscar Stack. Also for the individual photo.
Oldman (personal communication: thanks)
This page incorporates material from Garry Gillard's Freotopia website, that he started in 2014 and the contents of which he donated to Wikimedia Australia in 2024. The content was originally created on 23 November, 2014 and hosted at freotopia.org/people/stack.html (it was last updated on 16 March, 2024), and has been edited since it was imported here (see page history). The donated data is also preserved in the Internet Archive's collection.