Barbara Stone tributes flow after fatal car accident near Victory College

A ‘beautiful, kind lady’ is being remembered after she was killed in a tragic accident near Gympie.

Tributes are flowing for 86-year-old Araluen woman Barbara Stone who tragically passed away in hospital on July 6 after a crash near Gympie on June 27.

Ms Stone was travelling along Old Maryborough Rd, near Victory College in Gympie, when her car left the road and drove into a tree just before 11am.

She was the only person in the car at the time.

A Queensland Ambulance spokesperson said she was treated for serious rib, chest and spinal injuries but was taken to Gympie Hospital in a stable condition.

She was later taken to the Sunshine Coast University Hospital, where she succumbed to her injuries on Wednesday.

Barbara Stone was travelling along Old Maryborough Rd, near Victory College in Gympie, when her car left the road and drove into a tree just before 11am on June 27, 2022.

Gympie West Store employee Vicki Polley said Ms Stone was a regular customer at her work, and would often stop for a chat while buying the paper each week.

“Barbara was just a beautiful, loving, kind lady and loved having a chat. (She) always left making you feel positive (sic),” she said.

“(She) would always ask how my day was and always take my hand in hers, and would finish with ‘have a good day’ and ‘God Bless you’.”

After a while, Ms Stone began bringing homemade gifts for the women working at the store.

“She gave me this ‘tatted mat’, as she called it, but I call it a doily,” Ms Polley said.

Barbara Stone was a regular customer at the Gympie West Store, and often brought homemade gifts for the employees.

“Other things she made were tatted bookmarks and potpourri hangers made out of her wedding dress.”

Ms Polley said Ms Stone would share stories about her life and her late husband, who passed away “many years ago”.

“(She) would talk about the beautiful life they lived,” she said.

“She loved Gympie … said it was better than the Gold Coast. They had no children of their own. I guess she made her friends the children she never had.”

Ms Stone was privately cremated.