Sonoma Stories: She lived around the world after WWII and now works at Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital, for free

What a life Monique Purkett has had. Born and educated in France, she met and fell in love with an American GI during World War II. They married, and then followed his post-war work to Germany, Morocco, Spain and ultimately to the United States, and to Rohnert Park.

“I love this country,” said Purkett, a former private-school teacher who became a U.S. citizen 60 years ago.

“Actually, I loved everywhere we lived,” she said, her English charmingly French-tinged. “I am a very, very lucky person, and very grateful.”

Now 91, she spends a good deal of time at Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital. Oh, no, not as a patient.

Brisk, bright-eyed and fastidious, Purkett works at the landmark hospital as an essential assistant to patients, visitors and staffers. Since 2002, the year her husband died, she has put in more than 10,000 hours at Memorial. Her total pay: $0.

Purkett is one of the volunteers Memorial and most, if not all, hospitals rely on to greet, comfort and assist patients, and to act as a pair of extra, general-purpose, non-medical hands for often harried nurses, technicians and doctors.

“They’re like the ambassadors,” said Mario Lage, the volunteer services director at Kaiser Permanente Santa Rosa Medical Center. “They’re the first thing you see when you come in, and the last when you go out.”

At Sutter Santa Rosa Regional Hospital, patients and family members who arrive at the emergency room often are greeted by volunteers. They offer them water, coffee or a blanket, or help charge a phone - “Making them as comfortable as possible in an ER setting,” said Sukie Gill, whose responsibilities at Sutter involve coordinating the volunteers.

“They create smiles on our patients’ faces,” Gill said.

Duties differ from hospital to hospital, but volunteers commonly staff information desks and help patients and visitors navigate the campuses.

They visit patients’ rooms to chat and offer comfort items.

They help out with clerical tasks in hospital offices.

They propel patients in wheelchairs.

They run the charitable gift shops.

They have some fun with children while their parents spend time with a newborn in the neonatal intensive care unit.

They move supplies.

They sit and hold the hands of terminal patients who might otherwise die alone.

They make bedside visits with therapy dogs.

They do whatever they can to assist and relieve the pressure on caregivers.

“I don’t think we could exist without our volunteers,” said Monique Purkett’s boss, Kathy Exelby, Memorial’s volunteer services manager.

Exelby said Purkett is indispensable. She helps in the volunteer office for at least four hours on Tuesdays, and in the emergency department on Thursdays.

“Monique is so gracious; she’s very good at greeting people,” Exelby said. “She automatically knows what people need and makes sure that they get it.”

When Purkett signed up for the Memorial Hospital Auxiliary 16 years ago, she was motivated largely by gratitude for the care her husband received there in the final stage of his life.

“When he passed away, of course I was devastated,” his widow said, sitting at a table in Exelby’s office. “We were married 56 years.”

The former Monique Loyau met U.S. Army soldier Sam Lee Purkett of Montana in 1944, when he arrived in France from Africa. They fell in love and the GI returned to Loyau after the war. They married in 1946.

Sam Purkett went to work for the U.S. Defense Department, helping operate military exchange stores on overseas bases. He took his bride to his first assignment, in Weisbaden, Germany. The couple started a family there and stayed on until 1953.

Two strong impressions of Weisbaden have stayed with Monique Purkett all these years. One was the degree of destruction of the central western city, which endured 66 days of Allied bombing and was captured by the Americans in March of ‘45. The war bride was taken, too, by the humanity of the German people whose Nazi government had attacked and occupied France.

“I found out we are all the same,” Purkett said. “I loved my time in Germany.”

From there, Sam Purkett’s work took him and his wife and two sons to Morocco. They were living there when, in 1958, Monique Purkett was granted a visa to accompany her husband to a visit his hometown of Havre, Montana.

“It’s 22 miles from Canada,” she recalled.

They also visited California. Purkett said she enjoyed her first visit to America, but also was happy to return to her family’s home in the exotic, seaside city of Rabat, the capital of Morocco. The Purketts lived there until 1959, when Sam was transferred to Madrid, Spain.

The couple’s third and final child, a daughter, was born there. Spain was home for the clan until 1964, when Sam Purkett accepted a transfer to the U.S.

The family lived for a time in Virginia before moving to Southern California in 1965. Monique Purkett, who worked 25 years as a teacher, savors memories of discovering America by car - the family drove from the West Coast to the East and back six times.

The Purketts also explored California, and during an expedition north of the Golden Gate Bridge fell in love with Sonoma County. When Sam retired in 1984 they bought a home and sank roots in Rohnert Park.

The couple’s three children brought them two grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. When Sam died in May of 2002, his widow recalled, “I knew at that time I had to make my life alone.

“I said to myself, ‘I’ve got to do something.’”

Grateful for the care her husband received at Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital, she joined the auxiliary as a volunteer. To start, she greeted and assisted patients and visitors at the front desk.

Purkett did that work at least half a day a week for 12 years. After that she volunteered in the surgery waiting room and catheterization lab before discovering that she liked the pace, challenges and rewards of the emergency department.

No two Thursday shifts are the same. One day she went in search for clothes for a man who was being discharged and needed something to wear.

Other days, she offers patients warmed blankets and visits with them while they wait to be seen.

She said she loves working with people and feeling that she’s being helpful.

“I want to fill up my days with something interesting,” Purkett said. Through her work as a hospital volunteer, she said, “I found out I’m rewarded. I get so much in return.”

Volunteer coordinators work with the volunteers to accommodate their interests, skills and availabilities.

“We’re always looking for good candidates,” said Lage of Kaiser. He noted that about 70 percent of his hospital’s volunteers are 65 or older.

“And they treat this like a serious job,” he said.

“What a wonderful thing. I probably am the luckiest guy at Kaiser to be working for these people.”

Anyone interested in becoming a volunteer can contact the volunteer coordinator at the hospital of his or her choice. Or go the hospital and speak with the volunteers at the front desk, in the gift shop or busying themselves all about the facility.

They’re a naturally helpful bunch.

You can reach Chris Smith at 707-521-5211 or chris.smith@pressdemocrat.com.