Final resting place: For one veteran, the Poverello Center offered shelter in his final days
By KEILA SZPALLER of the Missoulian
Sometimes, a big loss in a community reveals something precious in it, too.
Donald Papke first shuffled up the steps of the Poverello Center some three weeks ago. The Vietnam veteran was thin and small and frail. But he wore big sunglasses, and inside his small frame, he packed big humor, too.
Vinny Wisniewski checked him into the Pov, Papke and his fancy walker. Then, in the beginning, Wisniewski learned Papke had a bullet lodged in his back, too close to his spine to operate. And maybe, he even had cancer.
But Wisniewski didn't learn too much else. Papke set aside his walker to climb the stairs, clutching the hand rail with both hands. He moved so slowly, he earned the nickname “Speedy.”
He went upstairs, and then, for a couple weeks, he mainly rested. He'd come down to smoke rolled tobacco on the back deck, said Terry Haas, a friend. Then, in the evenings, he'd ask someone to go to the store and buy him a candy bar, a 3 Musketeers.
Bob Auras presents a flag: from the service of homeless veteran Donald Papke to Poverello Center executive director Ellie Hill on Tuesday at Garden City Funeral Home in Missoula. Papke was a 68-year-old Vietnam veteran who died last week at the Poverello Center, where he had been staying for a few weeks.
Photo by TOM BAUER/Missoulian
But candy bars don't quell pain, and Papke hurt. One day, he couldn't even take off his own shoes, a pair of blue sneakers. A couple of weeks ago, he told his friends he was praying that night for God to take him in his sleep.
“He never was one to talk on that until the end,” Haas said.
That night in his bunk bed, he cried and prayed. Perhaps a merciful God took him, because Papke, 68, didn't wake up anymore.
At first, Wisniewski said he thought it was sad, that a man died by himself in a homeless shelter. Later, though, he realized Papke was ready to go, and he was glad a man who needed to rest felt comfortable doing so at the Pov.
At a memorial service Tuesday, Mayor John Engen said the Poverello Center took Papke in when others might have sent him away. And for a time, a short time, Papke had shelter there and companionship.
He may have died without family, but at the Garden City Funeral Home service, one man who paid tribute to Papke said people don't need to have the same blood running through their veins to consider each other family.
“You just have to have blood in your heart,” he said.
Those people at the Poverello Center do, and they did for Papke. One in four of those who spend the night there is a veteran, too. Director Ellie Hill said those veterans come home from wars to inadequate, splintered communities that still can't offer them enough.
Tuesday, though, was a day to honor Papke, and 30 people did. They did so with stories, an American flag, even with a letter.
The American Legion Post No. 27 paid him respect with an American flag presented to Hill, and Hill wrote a letter to Papke. She told him about the veterans in her family, their struggles, and she read the letter to those 30 people who honored him at the service.
“I'm really glad that we got to spend some time with you, for a short while, anyway,” Hill said.
Reporter Keila Szpaller can be reached at 523-5262 or at keila.szpaller@missoulian.com.
