Thomas Iredell Sutherland

Thomas Iredell Sutherland’s life came full circle when he died on January 23, 2020 in St. David’s Hospital in Austin, Texas, the same hospital in which he had been born on July 27, 1962. Tom was the youngest of the four children of William O. S. Sutherland and Madeline Cooley Sutherland. He graduated from Anderson High School and then attended Texas State University in San Marcos, where he graduated in 1986 with a Bachelor of Science in criminal justice. Tom had been active in the Boy Scouts, in Junior Achievement, and later in square dancing. He was a huge fan of Star Trek, especially the original season, and it is a shame he will not be around to see Picard, the latest installment in the series. Throughout his life he enjoyed summer trips with his family to northern Minnesota, where they had a lake cabin.

Tom was proud of his career as a civil servant; at his death he was a tax examiner for the Internal Revenue Service. Later this year he would have reached 30 years of service. When he was younger, he frequently volunteered as an election judge and regularly gave blood at the local blood bank.

Tom was preceded in death by his parents, William and Madeline Sutherland, and by his brothers Bill and John. He is survived by his sister Madeline C. Sutherland-Meier, her husband Richard P. Meier, and their daughter Erica Meier, by his maternal first cousin Caroline Massee and her husband Lawrence Paul, by his paternal aunt Dorothy Council, by his paternal first cousins Haskell Rhett, Dorothy Gore, Mary Rhett Gottschalg, and Katherine Gallotta, and by his sister-in-law Felicitas Sutherland and her family.

Tom greatly enjoyed the trips that he and his parents took to West Texas to join in the McDonald Observatory’s star parties. The family asks that those who wish to honor Tom’s memory consider a gift to the McDonald Observatory of The University of Texas at Austin: https://mcdonald.utexas.edu/about/giving

Visitation will be held at Weed-Corley-Fish Funeral Home, 3125 North Lamar (512-452-8811), on Saturday, February 1, from 4:00-6:00 PM. A burial service will be held later this year in Grand Forks, ND, where his maternal grandparents, his parents, and his brothers are buried.