Larry Kiedrowski, who preferred living on Great Falls' streets, dies

Larry Kiedrowski, who lived on the streets of Great Falls for decades, died Saturday at age 71.

Kiedrowski was a farm boy from Hogeland, north of the Hi-Line in Blaine County. His family, which included six siblings, moved to Havre in the winters so the children could have a Catholic education. The first born, he excelled, a straight-A student, who continued on to Northern Montana College and then went into the U.S. Air Force. He married and had children.

His sister and guardian, Becky Aselin, was No. 6 in the family. She remembers her brother as smart, high-achieving and never a worry to his parents as he grew up. 

"When I was growing up, he was my favorite brother," she said. "He always took time to play with me. I just have nothing but fond memories."

In his 30s, everything changed.

In 1996, Kiedrowski, diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, was armored with a black bicycle helmet and plastic shop glasses with no lenses. He told a Tribune reporter he was afraid someone would attack him or take his things if he sought shelter. He worried about radio waves and airplanes overhead. He didn't like authority figures.

He'd been homeless for six years by then. Great Falls had an estimated 128 homeless people, and he was by far the most recognizable.

Kiedrowski divorced in 1989 after going off his medication and getting into fights with his wife and two sons. He lost his job as a hydraulics specialist with the Montana Air National Guard in 1991 and moved into his 1973 Volkswagen, which didn't run. He lived there for two years, pushing it from parking spot to parking spot downtown to avoid tickets. It was impounded, and his sanity continued to erode. 

He didn't hurt anyone or beg on the streets. His family provided for him, setting up accounts around town and making sure he had money. Calls to police typically focused on how he might be helped.

"I'm the one who needs to take care of myself," he told the Tribune. "I'm the only one I've got left."

He was wrong, though.

Kiedrowski had many people in his life, in his extensive family, in the police department and in the community who looked out for him.

In 2006, the police department was flooded with calls when Kiedrowski disappeared. His family wrote to the Tribune then saying he was "very independent and sometimes reluctant to accept help from family and friends. It is the kindness of strangers that help us ensure Larry's well-being."

He was later found in Black Eagle.

Another summer, he took off for Havre and set himself up outside the mall, though his family was finally able to convince him to return to Great Falls, where he had more places to stay and knew more people.

Aselin remembers coming home from Washington for Christmas one year. Her brother on the farm picked her up at the airport, where Kiedrowski had been waiting all day for her arrival. 

"I just wanted to see you," he told her. 

They couldn't convince him to join them for Christmas at home. They had to let him out on the streets in a blizzard.

"We all tried to get him indoors and off the street," she said. "That was the way he wanted to live."

As Kiedrowski got older, he was willing to be inside more, and his paranoia eased. He still didn't want to be "locked up and closed in."

"You could never make him do anything, but if you convince him he would be OK with it," Aselin said.

Aselin always searched the streets for her brother when she was in Great Falls. One summer, she couldn't find him until finally on the road to Havre she spotted him and quickly flipped around. 

Kiedrowski met Aselin's husband that day. He was matter-of-fact in his manner. Oh, hi, he said.

Within minutes, the police had arrived and Aselin introduced herself as Kiedrowski's sister.

"I could see they were taking care of him," she said.

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In 2005, police confiscated Kiedrowski's unwieldy cart for the fourth time. Drivers complained to police that it took Kiedrowski 10 minutes to pull the cart across the street. The cart had grown to more than 12 feet long, 5 feet wide and 9 feet tall with a propeller-like rotor of canoe paddles and plastic foam.

Hundreds of colorful bungee cords, chains and ropes held together a suitcase, folding chair, lawn mower engine, blue tarp, tires of all sizes, blankets and arbitrary automotive parts in plastic sacks. Reflectors and flashlights decorated the mast.

Police allowed Kiedrowski to take anything he wanted with him but not the cart as a whole. He refused two sleeping bags, a bag of food and two flashlights that police offered.

When asked why Kiedrowski packed around the large and heavy load, his mother told the Tribune, "They are his things. That's what he likes to do." His parents had moved to Great Falls to be closer to him, to help him and predeceased him.

As a young patrolman, Cory Reeves met Kiedrowski in about 2000.

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"Like all of us on the street patrol, you take care of your needy and homeless. I'd keep an eye on him to make sure no one was messing with him," Reeves said on Tuesday. 

Around 2004, Reeves caught wind that the county attorney's office was going to try to commit Kiedrowski and put together a coalition that successfully fought off the effort and also took responsibility for his welfare.

"Larry was a human being. Yes, he had mental health issues, but if he wants to live on the streets and isn't a big disruption, he should be able to," Reeves said. 

For the next 15 years, Reeves and his other caretakers helped with motel rooms. 

"He wasn't a very clean man and after awhile those rooms would accumulate things. He'd move again, but there were always people in the community and motel owners who would take him in," Reeves said. "He was out on the streets a lot, and we worked with him on not building carts."

Reeves said he couldn't even budge the bigger carts. Kiedrowski was strong.

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He loved going to movies and out to dinner with Reeves' family. He cheered for the police during the "Guns and Hoses" hockey matchups against firefighters. He would grin ear to ear at those games as every step someone would greet him by name.

Kiedrowski's health declined, and he went to the hospital on Jan. 5. He died the next day. A nurse recognized him and called Aselin in Washington. She talked to him as he passed away.

Kiedrowski was intelligent and loved to read. He drank Diet Coke. Though he had mental health issues, he was mentally and physically strong and "you would have to be to survive that many years on the streets of Great Falls, Montana," Reeves said. "He just wanted to be on the streets."

Kiedrowski's body is at Edwards Funeral Home in Chinook, and he will be cremated. His funeral likely will be in the spring at a date not yet determined. Reeves said his family recognizes how much he meant to Great Falls and will consider that in observances.

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