Katrina's Lives Lost:	Walter Zumpe 1919-2005 
Submitted By: 		N.O.V.A November 2005
Source:			Times Picayune 11-15-2005

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Walter Zumpe had been through quite a lot before Standard Brands
transferred him to New Orleans about a half-century ago to run its coffee
plant.

An Indiana native who grew up loving opera and wanting to sing
professionally, Zumpe used his tenor voice to help pay his college tuition.

In World War II, he was a fighter pilot who was captured by German forces
in October 1944, after his plane was shot down.

In six months of captivity, "he said they walked him through several
towns," said George Leidenheimer, a friend and fellow veteran who joined
Zumpe in speaking about World War II at schools. "The roughest time they
had was walking through Munich. A bunch of Hitler Youth threw stones at
him."

Because of Zumpe's vocal talent, the German officers frequently made him
sing for them, his granddaughter Aimee Hayes said, and he performed for his
fellow POWs at Easter dinner.

Zumpe was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross and about a dozen battle
stars.

In civilian life in New Orleans, he moved from Standard Brands to the
William B. Reily Co., whose Luzianne coffee plant was just across U.S. 90.

"Remember how good it used to smell when you drove across the Industrial
Canal?" Hayes said. "That was why."

Zumpe, the plant manager, got along well with everyone, said W. Boatner
Reily III, the company's chairman.

He also developed a reputation as a first-class coffee and tea taster,
Hayes said, even though he smoked three packs of cigarettes every day.

One of Hayes' dominant memories was attending operas with her grandfather,
who used to sing arias around the house.

Zumpe also developed a consuming interest in books about World War II,
Hayes said, and he took classes on the war taught by University of New
Orleans historian Stephen Ambrose.

Even when disaster was barreling toward New Orleans, Zumpe lived up to this
description from a close friend: "He was a hardheaded man."

His granddaughter was trying to persuade him to leave his Gentilly home,
but Zumpe, 85, was having none of it.

"He told me he had gumbo, he had coffee, he was fine," Hayes said.

When she fretted about his water supply, Hayes said she received this
retort:

"I don't drink water. Whatever happens, I don't care. I'll be fine."

After all, Hayes said, "he had lived in that house for 40 years and had
been through whatever had come through there."

When Katrina approached, Hayes said, her grandfather wanted to be with his
books, which the floodwater turned to pulp.

His wife, June Zumpe, "evacuates when it rains," Hayes said. In addition to
the poodles she raises, she took Dixie, her husband's golden Labrador
retriever, when she evacuated the weekend before the storm.

The family thinks Zumpe hunkered down in his attic with pictures of and by
family members, but at some point decided to go downstairs. While there,
the floodwater apparently knocked his frail legs out from under him, and
his body was found in the den.

He was buried in Daleville, Ind., on Friday -- Veterans Day.