Jeff Walch by Marilyn Strauss
Welcome to celebrate Jeff’s life
Most of you probably know or have been to Patchewollock. That’s where the Walch Family come from. Just like the way we do things out there, we spell our name a little differently too. W A L C H. Instead of the usual S H. Our father used to say, the C in Walch was for class…
My name is Marilyn and I am Jeff’s oldest sister and I really do not want to be doing this as we have never lost a brother and it is a very strange feeling that we will not speak again or tease each other. Jeff enjoyed a good tease.
A little bit of background
Patchewollock is a farming community settled by our grandparents after World War 1 and we still have our brother Peter living there with his family. So, we are children from the Mallee and that red Mallee dirt runs deep.
Jeff was educated at Hopetoun High and then went on to Monash University to study unsolvable maths problems. The reason for deciding on a pure maths degree was a very Jeff one. It only had 5 hours of lectures a week and no Prac so far better than engineering which would have been 30 hours a week.
To support himself during university days he would have to come home and help with the harvest but Jeff had decided at early age he would not be a farmer. He was trained from an early age to drive the tractor and each year they (the brothers?) would get the Barley Allocation - $5,000 for the year. Probably for tax minimising benefits, not from our youngest brother Greg. He was still at school himself, but from our father.
Our grandfather built the Baring Golf Course so there was a lot of golf in our lives growing up and Jeff’s nickname as a school boy was ‘Golfer’. But as Peter and Greg pointed out he was the worst golfer out of all the brothers.
Sport was a big part of the boys growing up and as there was only 16 months in age between Jeff and Greg there was always fierce competition. If you think it was confined to just the boys, you’d be wrong. The competitive mould was broken when it came to our little sister, Kathryn. Not so much me though. Table tennis, pool, basketball. In fact, last Easter at Patche they will still competing.
I remember one summer holiday the Brisbane Walch’s prided themselves on being tennis family and Jeff was determined to beat Greg so engaged in a professional to coach him for 12 months before the big play off against Greg. I now cannot now remember who was the winner. But you can be assured the winner would have not been entirely gracious, perhaps the Class my father talked of was not a thing when it came to sport and competing.
During his time at university, he met the love of his life, Fiona.
After applying unsuccessfully for one job after graduation, Jeff delayed the inevitable and went back to Monash to do Honours.
Jeff and Fiona did the obligatory going to work in the Uk which would have been the late seventies and he worked for an EMI missile company where he studied the probability of how many people would be destroyed by a missiles.
Jeff and Fiona then did a bike tour around Europe before returning to Melbourne.
Back in Melbourne he worked for Arthur Anderson and the story goes that he was in Chicago on a training course and scored some weed but could not finish before checking out so taped it under the bathroom basin – returned 6 months later and requested the same room and much to his delight found that his weed was still there.
Interestingly, Jeff died with a stash of weed but this time it was purely for pain management I’m sure.
Jeff and Fiona also had a 6-month stint in Saudi Arabia where he worked on setting up the Saudi Stock Exchange. A somewhat noble calling but it was not the best time for Fiona, being heavily pregnant with Sean and covered head to toe in 40 degree heat.
Jeff liked his work but we were always a little baffled by what he did. He really loved his last job at COSOL and loved the big contracts that he managed to achieve. And while we didn’t exactly know what he did, we knew our brother was smart. Very smart. That sharp smartness showed in other ways too. I’ll always remember years ago when Jeff declared that India would one day become more powerful than China. At the time it sounded bold, but it spoke to his ability to see patterns and possibilities. His mathematical mind always at work.
That same love of thinking big carried into his passion for politics. It was woven deeply into his relationship with Fiona. Fiona was always involved in Labor, and when they lived in Prahran, they once hosted an election night party together. Much to Jeff and his mates’ horror, the only drinks on offer were wine. A hat went around and soon cases of beer were purchased as none of them wanted to be Chardonnay Labor Members. Beer is what real men, real Labor voters drink. So they thought.
Fiona mentioned that even when Jeff was getting really sick, he still remained totally across politics. Smart, sharp and opinionated as ever.
Fortunately for me, Jeff and Fiona relocated to Queensland in the eighties and settled in Brisbane. We became known as the Queensland Walch’s which meant we could have front row seats to watch and enjoy Justin, Sean and Anna grow up. It was a big step for Victorians to move to Queensland in the eighties as Qld was ruled by Joh Bjelke Peterson and we were all very left wing. The selling point for Queensland was the weather.
It is just so sad that he will not be here to see his beautiful grandchildren grow up. But we’re sure his Walchness will continue on through the generations.
Jeff loved his Bardon home with their big veranda, macadamia tree and massive pool that they regarded as their 4th child as it needed so much care. Worth it as it brought a lot of joy to plenty of children and family events.
There were many lively discussions on the deck with glasses of red as all the cousins congregated down stairs playing pool and Nintendo. From that deck we solved the problems of the world and argued over the record player with Jeff wearing some kind of loud, Hawaiian shirt.
Music was a big part of Jeff and he loved his music collection (and being in charge of the record player) – Pink Floyd, Moody Blues, Leonard Cohen. In fact, he was in charge of music at our mother’s funeral and we had decided to have Vera Lynn song ‘Till we met again” but the track Jeff put on was Wish Me Luck as you wave me Goodbye. A story that has gone down in Walch family history.
When my oldest grandchild, Emmeline, 9, got the news of Jeff’s passing. She said, “But I hardly spoke to him at Josie’s birthday!” We comforted her with the thought that what would have meant the most to Jeff wasn’t a long conversation, it was seeing her and her sister happily playing with Josie, Penny, Georgia, Hazel, and Gus, and sharing the excitement of welcoming another new cousin – Anna’s little boy, Max, into the fold.
That beautiful bond between the youngest generation is no accident. It has grown from every celebration, every Christmas, every potato bake where the Strauss and Brisbane Walch families came together.
And that is part of Jeff’s legacy too — the laughter, the arguments, the debates on the deck, and above all, the love between generations.
Some families grow apart as their lives get busy. But we have always kept in close touch. In 2023, the entire Walch family made the trip to Patche at Easter to be there for Jeff’s final time at Patche. We went to show the next generation life on the farm. A special time that we had to repeat in 2024, as Jeff was still alive and wanted to get back to the farm. There’s just something so-Jeff about that.
I’m going really going to miss my brother.
When I wanted clarity, I would call him, and he’d cut straight to the chase. Jeff was at the Big End of Town and gave great business advice, but I also valued his opinion on everything else. He was smart, yes, but he also saw people and the world in his own Jeff-way. He was never sarcastic. He never put people down. He always just saw the best in them. Like I said earlier, it’s a very strange feeling to know that we will not speak again or tease each other.
I know that strange feeling will be a little lessened whenever I spend time with my niece and nephews and their families.
I really loved my brother. I loved all the moments I got to spend as his big sister. I loved all the Christmases, all the debates, all the record shuffling and red wine. Of growing up and growing up our families together. The phone calls, the trips to Patche, the turns around the dancefloor and for all of those small moments – the mundane and the merry – that I got to spend with him.
