Donald was born in Cheshire, UK, son of Gilbert and Jessie (Stenton) Wall. He died peacefully at Peace Haven Nursing Home. He is survived by his sister Mrs Sheila (John) Bray and his niece Ms Lisa Thomas of the UK and his cousin Roger Wall of QLD. He is also survived by his wife Lana (Walker) Wall, Norwood and his sister-in-law Connie (Dan) Carter of the USA.

He was formerly a senior lecturer in chemistry at the Launceston Campus of the University of Tasmania. He received his PhD from the University of Manchester in Organic Chemistry.

In retirement he served as President of the Royal Commonwealth Society, Norther Branch Inc.; The Probus Club of Launceston Inc. and the Corralinn Fly Fishing and Casting Association. He was also a lay reader at St John’s Church, Launceston.

His family extend grateful thanks to the staff at Peace Haven for the wonderful care they gave Donald these past 5 years.

Donald's wife Lana, has also shared her eulogy.

Thank you one and all for your attendance, your cards, your visits, your flowers, your food and a cheerio to those who are following online.  I don't know where to start in giving thanks, because it might never end.  But I do want to thank my sister, Connie, for her support this past week.  We had planned this visit 6 months ago.  Donald and I had stayed with her in Scottsbluff.

I also wish to say thank you to Ivan James from the Probus club, who organised such useful topics on such things as pre-planning your funeral.  I had a running start as to what were Donald's wishes from having his funeral in St. John's Church to the red roses on the casket.

Donald was born in Stockport, Cheshire England on 18th September, 1936.  His father was a salesman for Spillers Flour Mills.  His father served in the Royal Air Force and repaired Lancasters  during the war and told us about pulling soldiers killed during “friendly fire” out of the planes. 

Donald is survived by a sister, Sheila and her husband John Bray from Congleton, Cheshire and a niece, Lisa Thomas, also of the UK.  He is also survived by a cousin, Roger Wall, who has been in Australia since the late 60s, who also at one time worked in Launceston.  He now lives in Queensland, but they never met up in Australia.

Donald attended the local primary school in his village, High Lane, and then got a scholarship to attend Stockport Grammar, where he became interested in chemistry.  That study led to a Bachelor of Science, a master's and PhD degrees at the University of Manchester.  In 1965 he went to the US to do post-doc work at the University of Nebraska in the Department of Chemistry under Norm Cromwell.  He was given plenty of warnings about those American women, which he did not heed!  He is survived by me his wife, Lana, of Norwood.  We married in Scottsbluff, Nebraska 23rd February 1969, and recently celebrated 55 years of marriage.

He worked for several years for the Quaker Oats Company in Barrington, Illinois near Chicago in its research section.

Tasmania was advertising for teachers and he and I migrated to Tasmania landing 17th January, 1971, and marking just over 53 years in Australia.  He taught chemistry at Hobart Matric and Elizabeth Matric and then in 1973 joined the Tasmanian College of Advanced Education, Hobart Campus.

Donald takes a subject and goes deep.  When living in Hobart he took up correspondence chess, sponsoring a youth competition for the local club at the Lenna in the days when there was telex.  It was a Sunday and the moves went back and forth with students on the mainland.  He was also interested in the pseudo-sciences and subscribed to the Sceptical Inquirer.  He has always been interested in Arthur Ransome and had all his books, both by and about.   He wrote a story for the Arthur Ransome Society about his father on a yacht with other mates and having to rush back to base sailing at night with no lights, which was a no-no on the Norfolk Broads.  They had a breakdown, which delayed their return journey back to work and this episode was recorded in a local paper.

When the TCAE in Hobart was dismantled in 1979 he was transferred to Launceston, but prior to relocating we had an American from California, Dr Leo Gunther from his Chemistry Department to dinner and the discussion turned to religion.  Donald had been baptised, but never confirmed and had early on as a child decided Sunday School was not on.  He had school 6 days a week.  He could tell that Leo and I were on the same page and felt he didn't know enough about the subject to contribute.  So what was this religion all about?   He became a seeker, visited various churches and we settled on St. John's Church and it became our family as we have no children.  He was confirmed in St. John's in 1979 by the Rev. Ian Booth.  He took correspondence courses with Ridley College, Melbourne, for a Diploma in Theology.  One of his Examiners wanted to meet him as he found his responses to questions on the exams very interesting.  We invited he and his wife, who were on holiday in Tasmania, to dinner.  He also received a Bachelor's Degree in Divinity from the University of London and he was very proud of this achievement with the quip that he was now “divine”.

As part of his study on the Bible, he had a piece of paper identifying how to read the Bible daily from cover to cover.  He did this at least 3 times and he would do this in his “prayer chapel”, he had designated for the toilet.  We were on 7 acres at Longford and sometimes I just had to head outdoors as we only had 1 toilet.

I will leave the details of his working life in Launceston to his former boss, Dr. Don McWilliam who will speak later as Donald told me nothing, unless I asked a question and then it was a very considered answer.

With early retirement from the University of Tasmania, he looked around to see what was about, because I was still working.  He realised, living at Longford, he was near God's gift to fly fishing – Brumby's Creek and the Great Lake.  He undertook tuition from Lindsay Haslem, a persistent fly fisher. Donald also loved collecting books, which included 12 crates of fishing books  I had the job of matching them against a list, which a friend typed up from Donald's note books.  Andrew Braithwaite helped find a home for the books.  Donald also served several terms as President of the Corralinn Fly Fishing and Casting Association and had many valued fishing friends, some of whom are here today.

He served as President of the Royal Commonwealth Society (Northern Tasmanian Branch, Inc), 2006-7, during its celebration of 50 years in 2006.  A celebratory dinner was addressed by the Honourable Peter Underwood, Acting Governor of Tasmania.  They exchanged information about some sort of common British background.  It might even have been Stockport Grammar School.

There will be several pictures of Donald with his Probus chain around his neck as he had also served as President of the Probus Club of Launceston, Inc.

Holidays were spent alternating between my family in Nebraska and his in the UK and France.  You will see a picture of my tribe as I am one of seven children.  We were all in black and he was in a white shirt.  So he was not the black sheep of the family, but the white sheep.  Before our visits he had to do up a chart to get everyone's name straight.

His sister and husband made a new home in a small village in the south of France near the Canal du Midi for about 10 years.  Donald enjoyed those visits to France, especially Paris, where he could read the language, but found conversing in French a challenge.  I still remember standing in line to go up the Eiffel Tower where he was reading le Figaro and I saw the gypsies pass him by as being a Frenchman.  He also liked to collect all sorts of hats, which included a beret.  There will be a picture of him with his beret.  All of his hats were given to Dr Frank Madill.

From 2012 came the start of mental decline and the challenges of living with the gradual onset of dementia.  Fortunately he was “just” able to cope allowing me to return to the US for my mother's funeral in June 2014.  He was smart enough to get by by saying “how nice to see you again,” when he had no idea who it was.  I sat through the painful assessment of his mental capacity.  He couldn't put the numbers in the correct order on a clock, didn't know the current prime minister, etc.  I had looked after him, especially after his operation for prostate cancer until a stroke in 2019 meant he could no longer walk and had to go into full time care in Peace Haven Nursing Home.  Any words expressed were few and far between, but he could nod with understanding and we did communicate that way.  The nurses could get a response from him.  He was well looked after by the staff.  And I am deeply indebted to the staff of the Home.