Valued member of Munhall community thrived on social activities
Late in Louise Pokrifka’s life, a doctor examining her heart rate told her to take a stroll. She started walking.
“Whoa. Slow down,” he shouted. “I said stroll.”
“What?” she said, turning around. “This is how I stroll.”
Mrs. Pokrifka was always on the move. In her church, in her family and in her kitchen, there was rarely a moment when she wasn’t doing something or on her way to some place. The whirlwind came to a rest Wednesday night when Mrs. Pokrifka died in hospice care of complications from lung cancer. She was 85.
During most of her life Mrs. Pokrifka lived in the house in Munhall where her late husband of 54 years, Anthony “Soupy” Pokrifka, was born. It was the home where they raised a family, and ground zero for social activities that took her to the fire hall, the Catholic church and throughout the neighborhood.
Until recent months, she baked for the weekly St. Maximilian Kolbe Parish fish fry. She was well known as a caretaker, cake baker and cookie connoisseur. If a recipe was lost, Mrs. Pokrifka knew it. If a neighbor needed a ride to the store, she drove.
“The thing everyone talks about is how friendly she is with everybody,” her daughter Cindy Kacin of Munhall said. “She’d go to visit my brother and take walks in his neighborhood. She got to know people he didn’t even know. If she was waiting in line at the store, people there became her friends.”
Keeping on the move was important to Mrs. Pokrifka, and exercise made her feel good. “I think she thought that as long as she exercised she’d keep going,” Ms. Kacin said.
The Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh’s Silver Sneakers program, designed to help seniors to stay healthy and socially active, was a perfect match for Mrs. Pokrifka. Until about 2017, it was her goal to walk 10,000 steps a day.
“After my dad died and she moved to the apartment, she used to walk the stairs,” her son, Joe Pokrifka of the Philadelphia suburb of Jenkintown, said. “When she couldn’t do that anymore, she took the elevator up and walked down, just so she could get her steps in.”
Mrs. Pokrifka was a dedicated Kennywood fan who challenged-friends and family, including her grandchildren, to ride the steepest roller coasters. For 15 years, she and her husband, an avid fisherman, had a trailer camp at Vacationland Campground in Mercer County where their annual angler-caught fish fry became the talk of the camp ground neighborhood.
In her last year of life, Mrs. Pokrifka was voted May Queen of St. Maximilian Kolbe and given a crown of flowers.Two weeks before she died she drove across town for a sale on pears, fell on the sidewalkand had to call for help.
Mrs. Pokrifka’s final getup-and-go activity was completed early.
“She got everybody’s Christmas presents ready for this year,” Ms. Kacin said. “Her room is filled with wrapped presents. It was her final goal.”
In addition to Ms. Kacin and Mr. Pokrifka, she is survived by a sister, Joann Molinaro of Liberty; two other daughters, Maryann O’Toole of Munhall and Annette Capp of West Homestead; six grandchildren and companion Jack Stokenof West Mifflin.
A Mass of Christian Burial will be held at 10 a.m. Monday at St. Maximilian Kolbe Parish, 363 West 11th Ave., Homestead.