GOTTSCHUTZKE, Noela Helen ‘Aunty Wally’ (née Jones)

I will always have great memories of Noela – and family – from my many visits from Melbourne starting in the early 1980s. It was always full on with grape picking to helping out on the boat and all the fun in between. Jumping in the river to cool down and feeding the possums were favourites. Noela had a zest for life and was very welcoming of everyone. She loved sharing her many interests, most involving the natural world but also music and reading.

Aunty Noela was a constant presence in my life growing up.

Uncle Des was in many ways, a father in the absence of the one I never got to know. Noela his strong, capable, loving woman and wife – who adored and loved her children and grandchildren immensely – taught me much about understanding what it is to be an Australian woman in the bush, as Des taught me the foundations of early manhood.

From the boat to the lagoon, and out onto those saltbush horizons, our world is sadder at the loss of Noela – one of the last of a fading generation.

But I take solace in this…Noela and Des, and most likely a few other Gottschutzkes, are on a big old deep riverbend somewhere, fishing, hunting, camping and resting forever in peace.