The Rev. Van de Laar, Pastor of the St. Patrick's Roman Catholic parish, died last Thursdat in Mercy Hospital, at the age of sixty. A dragging ailment put an end to his life. Pastor Van de Laar was born in the Netherlands, where he studied for the priesthood, and was inducted in office according to the Roman Catholic Church. In 1875 he came to America, mainly for the purpose of working among the strayed Dutch Catholics. Soon, however, he saw for himself a much larger field of labor. In 1880 he was appointed as assistant preacher in St. Columbkill parish, Grand Avenue and Paulina Street. A few months later he went to South Chicago to take charge of the St. Patrick parish, then only a mission station in a place called Ainsworth that is now known as South Chicago, From that time up to the time of his death, he was leader of that parish which, under his leadership, flourished and became a large and strong parish from which fourteen other parishes sprouted, so that South Chicago, at the present time, counts no less than fifteen Catholic parishes. Pastor Van de Laar was an industrious servant of the Catholic gospel, who applied all his strength and ability to the good of the parish. The funeral services took place Monday morning in the Church of his parish, attended by Archbishop Quigley. High Mass was said by 2Bishop Muldoon. As in life, so was he also in death, a commoner. In his will he asked that his body be not transported in a hearse, but in a street-car and also that those who attended his funeral should not ride in hired carriages but should follow him in street-cars to the grave. This wish was faithfully carried out. The funeral procession went via the Calumet Electric and Union Traction Company's lines to Mount Olivet, where interment took place. The reason he had made this stipulation in his last testament, was to set an example for others, especially for those of small means, who often have costly funerals far above the financial means of the family. Pastor Van de Laar had often signified his dislike for such costly funerals, and had made it plain that a funeral procession per street-car, served the purpose just as well if not better, than the method now generally followed.