I don't want to forget

Eulogy for Christopher Schauble
St Augustine’s Catholic Church, Pinjarra
May 5th, 2011


Christopher Robert Schauble was born on August 21st, 1950 at the Mercy Hospital in East Melbourne, the fourth son of Walter and Barbara Schauble, whose family would eventually grow to embrace seven boys.

He spent his early years at the family’s home in McShane Street, North Balwyn until the Schaubles moved in 1958 to ‘Woodside’ at Victoria Grove in Ferny Creek in the Dandenong Ranges, east of Melbourne.

If any of my brothers ever doubted that Christopher was the apple of his mother’s eye, let me assure you that he started gathering those affections early. Mum kept a “glory box” of mementoes, in which I found the following note when I dipped into it the other day. Written on 1950s “Thank You” notepaper, in that curious handwriting of the six-year-old who attaches random value to capitals and lower case, it reads:

Dear Mummy, I am the best boy in the world and I want a kiss. Christopher.

He started early indeed, did Chris. What hope did the rest of us have?

Chris was at the centre of this family of boys – three older brothers, three younger – but in many ways he became a pioneer of sorts.

He completed his primary education at St Joseph’s College in Ferntree Gully, and unlike his older brothers who continued to travel to Marcellin College in Canterbury, in 1962 Chris became just the 42nd student to enrol at a new Catholic college opened by the Carmelite Order at Donvale, still some 15 miles distant from home. His classmates included Peter Lazzaro, Mark Knapp and John Murphy, the last of whom went onto renown as a champion footballer with Fitzroy.

Whitefriars College defined Chris’s teenage years, as it would those of his younger brothers who in time all followed him there. He made many friends at school, some of whom would remain in contact for many years and others who would ask “How’s Chris?” when, for whatever reason one or other of the rest of us would encounter them even years later.

At Whitefriars, his academic achievements might have been modest. But he became an important part of the growing school community – as a member of the school athletics team, the football 1st XVIII and as a form captain and school prefect in his Leaving year. A history of the school’s early years contains the following schoolboy account of a rendition of the comic play The Man in the Bowler Hat by A.A. Milne:

One’s overall impression of the play was that it was very good. For the members of the audience who had not previously seen the play it had an anticlimactic conclusion, which was nevertheless totally surprising. This was supplied by Christopher Schauble … His part, small as it was, was executed with superb nonchalance as he said, flicking the ash from his cigar: “Yes, well, that was all right … just a bit ragged still … we’ll take it again at eleven tomorrow. Second act please!”

Who would have thought Chris, of all people, such a showman? But who else among us would have been street -smart enough to find a viable excuse to smoke a cigar at the age of 15?

He was also a sometime correspondent on matters of fashion to the school magazine, Broadside. In one such epistle, he wrote – and remember – this is the 1960s …

Sir, I cannot see why so many people complain about the way young people have their hair. One should be allowed to wear one’s hair long if one so chooses and not be criticised for it …

and, here is the clincher

In Christ’s time, many people had long hair, to which nobody complained because it was the accepted style. But now young people are criticised because they want to do as they like in regard to fashion …”

Despite these activities at school, at the same time Chris also found time to join with the local community. He led the way for his younger siblings as an early member of the 1st Ferny Creek Scout troop. A defining experience in his early life was attendance at the 7th Australian Jamboree at Dandenong in the summer of 1964-65, at which 16,000 Scouts from around the world were present.

He also later played, as did two of his brothers and now his nephew, Sam, a couple of seasons with the Olinda-Ferny Creek Football Club.

Even at this stage, while our family was large, its extensions were largely remote. Dad’s siblings were all in Germany, Mum’s in New Zealand or interstate with the exception of her sister Linda. And so the Whites, who at that time lived not far from Whitefriars in Donvale, became an important part of Chris’s life.

A contemporary in age to his cousin Debbie – who is with us today – Chris was a natural link between the families and he and Debbie remained close throughout his life.

Chris was in his own quiet way a bit of a rebel. He realised early on that the academic path was not for him. This was something of a bold move in a family where our father, having been denied by World War II the opportunity to complete his own education, was not just determined but worked hard so that his sons would have that opportunity.

The first three sons had all gone to university, it must be said with somewhat mixed results initially – but, well, it was the 1960s after all.

Christopher decided this wasn’t his path. And so he left school having attained his Leaving Certificate. His first job, as Marlene reminded me the other night, was as it was for many of us, helping Dad with his modest wholesale florist business. But Chris soon embarked upon a career in the hospitality industry.

It seemed very glamourous, at least to the eyes of his younger siblings, to have a brother working in hotels and motels. Chris told the story of his pride at being appointed a trainee manager in the Commodore chain, headed by George Frew, and of being told to start work at an appointed time and date. He duly arrived, in a crisp business shirt and tie and jacket, full of expectation, only to be told to go home and change as his first actual task would be cleaning the toilets.

He made an early career with the Commodore chain, working to begin at establishments including the Village Green in Springvale and later an early theme pub, the Eureka Stockade in Bourke Street.

And like all young men, he was keen to impress with a suitable vehicle. Well, it was a vehicle, at least – a Mark II Ford Cortina of indifferent reliability.

One of my earliest and clearest memories of Chris was of him emerging from this car in the backyard at Ferny Creek one afternoon in 1970. The Vietnam War was at its height. As a 20-year-old, Chris was liable to be drafted for National Service. The draft was conducted by televised ballot.

So it was that our Mother greeted him at the car door one afternoon with the words: “Your number came up.” He looked, quizzical, not grasping her meaning. “You’ve been drafted,” said Mum. His one word response, precise and to the point, if clearly not well thought out, was a single, colourful expletive. It was the first time I’d ever heard anyone, let alone one of my siblings swear in front of my Mother.

In the end, he escaped the draft on medical grounds and was spared the turmoil of so many of his generation.

It was while working at the Eureka Stockade that he met his first wife, Valerie, a Canadian, and so began a chapter of his life that would in time take him away from our family for many years. Married in Canada, the young couple – still in their early 20s – returned to Australia to manage motels for the Commodore chain at Mildura and at Horsham in Victoria.

Eventually in the early 1970s Chris and Val made their home in Vancouver, Canada. Chris, now emerged as the family entrepreneur, moved into the business of selling waterbeds, with no small measure of success. The marriage produced two children, Ryan and Michelle, but did not endure.

Transferred by his company to Dallas in the United States, Chris eventually moved to Fiji and it was there that he proposed to Marlene. They were married at Green Island, off Cairns, in 1987. After returning to Canada for a time Chris and Marlene eventually returned to Queensland and settled in Mackay, where Chris’s business interests included real estate, photographics and corporate wear.

He and Marlene were to remain in Queensland for a dozen years before moving to Western Australia, where Chris returned to the real estate business, studying and eventually obtaining qualifications as a real estate agent and auctioneer. Locally he was regarded as one of the good guys, a quiet and ethical operator at the height of Mandurah’s property boom.

His final fulltime job was working for the Peel Development Commission, focussed on regional development in the south-west and in particular on the Boddington gold mine project.

Here in Mandurah, Chris and Marlene lived quietly, their circle of friends close. They were social members of the Meadow Springs Golf Club and the Mandurah Offshore Sailing and Yacht Club.

But at the heart of their relationship was the quiet devotion to each other that sustained them through 24 years of marriage.

The death last June of his younger brother Peter was as incomprehensible to Chris as it was to the rest of us. Now, with his own passing comes a solemn reminder to a generation of Schauble boys that we are not, after all, invincible; that the natural and inexorable cycle of birth, life and death continues.

Christopher Robert Schauble, who has left us at the too young age of 60 years, led a full, interesting, varied and fiercely independent life, divided between two continents. He was a husband, father and recently a grandfather, a much loved son and brother, uncle and great uncle. He was a friend to many.

Today we come together to honour and remember Chris, to celebrate his life and the life he shared with Marlene, to share in her grief but also to pledge to her our support.

As we reflect on Chris’s life, we might think upon a quote from Eleanor Roosevelt: “People grow through experience if they meet life honestly and courageously. This is how character is built.”

Joke is on me

I spend way too much time thinking about him. I spend way too much time wondering if he thinks about me. I try to remember the good times we had, but those were over 25 years ago now. I try to forget the verbal fights I used to witness, but those are things that are easiest to recall. I never wanted it to be this way. I feel like it is partially my fault that I didn't make the effort to go to his country and ask him the hard questions: Why did you leave the country? Why did you marry my aunt? Why did you stop calling me on my birthday? Why did you stop caring?

No memories

No memories of the good times.
No memories of him teaching me anything.
No memories of him encouraging me to learn new things.

Maybe I have repressed these memories? Maybe they never existed to begin with.

I can't seem to recall much of anything before my parents seperated in 1984.

I had a sandbox. We had a monkey tree. We had a pool. We had a trampoline. We had a jacuzzi. We had a play room. We had a long driveway that led out to a cul-de-sac which I rode my yellow bmx bike on everyday. Mom taught me how to ride it. I think...

I guess I can remember some stuff, but nothing relating to my Father.

Nothing good anyway.

New blog

I have no idea if I'll ever post anything here. I decided to create this space because as I was watching the newest episode of "How I met your Mother" I realized that there was so much missing in my life from not having a Father in it.

No man to make me more manly.
No man to call my best friend.
No man to teach me man things.
No man to be there when I needed him most.

No man in my life I could call my Dad. No man in my life that would put me through the emotions of losing that man. No grandfather in my life either. Not one that I ever got to know as a man or even a boy for that matter.

I used to think that maybe I am lucky to not have that man around as I went from a ten year old to a teenager to a beer drinker. Being a Dad myself now, I know this is as far from the truth as humanly possible.

Having all these women around me with very little man influence still makes me want to have a son of my own and do man things and teach him how to be a man so he can teach his son the same.