Thomas Gone

Thomas L. Gone, Wakinyan Wakan (Holy Thunder) 59 years old passed away on Saturday, August 12, 2017 at Swedish Hospital in Seattle. Thomas was born the only child to parents Christine First and David Julian Gone on December 29, 1957 in Poplar, Montana. He was raised in the traditional ways and customs by his maternal grandparents Nina Goes In House First and Jerome First Sr. in the Fort Kipp Community. He was an enrolled Sioux, Fort Peck Tribes and Gros Ventre descendant. He was a direct descendant of Chief Medicine Bear the founding chief of the Fort Peck Tribes. Thomas graduated from Brockton High School in 1976, Miles City College and YVCC with an Associate’s degrees. He served in the Army from 1979 to 1981. He worked at the Seattle Indian Center, Employment Security, Legends Casino and Indian Health Services. Thomas learned the game of basketball from his late Uncle Dean First and played basketball throughout high school, while in the Army into his adulthood throughout his thirties and forties. He played for the Brockton Warriors in high school and they won the State 2C Championship for Montana. He scored 60 plus points in one of his last Indian Basketball Tournaments in Tulalip, WA. He gave up playing basketball to take his daughter to volleyball practices and games during her middle, high school and YVCC. He enjoyed participating in pow wows from an early age until the present day. He recorded pow wow songs, made pow wow tapes and attended his last pow wow in Mandaree, North Dakota in July 2017. His other working hobbies were making Pendleton chairs, stools, necklaces and being a vendor at different Native American functions including pow wows, bazaars locally and throughout the western and southwestern United States. He was very outgoing, loved to laugh and tease family and friends. He made many pow wow, vendor and basketball friends during his life. He loved having a family and was a devoted father and husband. It was especially difficult for him when his lost his maternal grandparents in his teens. Thomas is survived by his wife of 35 years, Janet Gone of Toppenish; son Christopher Thomas Gone of Toppenish and daughter Aimee Elizabeth Gone of Everett, WA; brothers on his father’s side, Julian David “Wus” Gone of Pendleton, OR and Phillip Gone of Milton-Freewater, OR. Thomas is preceded in death by his biological parents, maternal grandparents, aunts, uncles, nephews, nieces, friends who he grew up with and most recently nephew Matt Gone. To order memorial trees or send flowers to the family in memory of Thomas Gone, please visit our flower store.