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ST. LOUIS — The wallpaper in Peggy Winckowski’s south ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ kitchen is covered in lemons. For the past six weeks, she’s been handing visitors a Sharpie and asking them to sign one.

“When life gives you lemons, you hang lemon wallpaper,� jokes Winckowski, 68.

During her low moments, the names scrawled across the fruit vines remind her of the people who, for almost three years, have lifted her out of her grief. Many are teenagers — high school seniors, like her Sam would be. They call her Grandma Peggy.

Sam Crowe — her actual grandson — is the one who brought them together.

During his freshman year at Bishop DuBourg High School, he and his cousin, a sophomore, would bring a few friends by on Wednesday mornings, when the boys had a late start at school. Winckowski would cook for the group — pancakes and sausage, muffins and monkey bread, whatever they requested. They called themselves the Breakfast Club.

The small, lemon-wallpapered kitchen would be crowded with loud voices and big appetites, just the way Winckowski likes it.

Her house had always been Sam’s second home. A set of cousins lived two doors over, and the blocks around Toenges Avenue crawled with friends. Winckowski welcomed them all.

“It was just the place to be,� said Brody Zarbo, 17, a friend of Sam’s since kindergarten.

Winckowski took the boys to Carondelet Park to play Pokémon Go. They rode their bikes through the alleys and off makeshift ramps, then crashed on her couch to watch TV. Later, Sam spent time in his grandma’s garage, fixing old lawn mowers. He would play video games and tinker with the console.

That was all before Sam died, at age 15. The Breakfast Club could have ended then.

Winckowski, though, craved her Wednesday morning routine: the half-awake hugs, the second helpings, even the stacks of dirty dishes. “If you come, I will feed you,� she told Sam’s friends.

Week after week, Grandma Peggy kept cooking her pancakes. The get-togethers have given her something to look forward to — a sense of normalcy, a community.

And the teens have been supported by her as much as she has by them.

“I believe he got the Breakfast Club started for me,� Winckowski says of Sam, “so I wouldn’t miss him so much.�

The midweek ritual developed into something more. A parent shared the story with CBS broadcaster Steve Hartman, . Friends and strangers have donated gift cards for groceries. A few of the teens recently gave her Holly Hills bungalow a facelift, and they all mourned with her again after another family loss.

Soon, the members of the Breakfast Club will graduate high school. But they say their relationship with Grandma Peggy will endure.

“I’ll see her all the time,� Brody said. “She just treats everyone like family.�

‘Grief because of love’

At DuBourg, Sam was a legacy. His grandma graduated from the Catholic high school in ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ Hills in 1975. Sam’s mom, Kim, and her identical twin sister, Kerri, were in the class of 1996. And Sam’s older brother and several cousins have been Cavaliers.

Sam was outgoing, like his grandma, and his circle of friends always had room for more. His freshman year, he played soccer, basketball and baseball, but he was already thinking about what might come after high school. He liked working with his hands.

He was considering joining the Marines, he confided in his grandma.

It will be three years in July since Sam and Brody decided to take Brody’s motorbikes out for a late-night adventure. Sam was staying over at Winckowski’s. Unofficial soccer workouts were underway, and he’d be back in class in a couple of weeks.

The boys planned to head to QuikTrip to pick up a drink. But when they got out into the sticky summer air, they decided to just ride.

A couple of miles away, near the intersection of South Broadway and Loughborough Avenue, a Jeep Wrangler slammed into Sam’s motorbike. By the time the ambulance arrived at the hospital, Sam was dead.

His friends woke up to their phones buzzing.

“I thought it was a joke at first,� said Jeremy Roeder, 18. “It was such a shock.�

None of the kids had lost a friend their age before. Most had never even lost a grandparent. They didn’t know what to do, so they made chocolate chip cookies and took them to Grandma Peggy.

Every day before Sam’s funeral, kids showed up on her porch.

“We have grief because of love,� Winckowski told them. “It hurts so bad because you loved him so much.�

The funeral at St. Stephen Protomartyr was standing-room only. DuBourg held a candlelight vigil. Its brick entrance on Eichelberger Street was covered in photos and flowers. The Athletic Association established a scholarship in Sam’s name.

Sam was everywhere and nowhere, said his friend Maddie Ruggeri, 18, now a senior at DuBourg.

“It was really hard going back to school,� she said.

The Breakfast Club made it easier. Maddie had never been until Sam died. The original group was boys-only.

The second iteration was open to all comers. Some weeks, three dozen kids would show up. Winckowski borrowed extra waffle irons and bought bacon in bulk. She woke up before the sun to roll out biscuit dough and slice strawberries.

The kids filled their plates — real plates, never paper — and squeezed in wherever they could find space. They told stories and roughhoused with the dogs. They hugged Winckowski and each other. Before they hustled off to school, she would snap a picture of the crew on the sidewalk, in their uniform polo shirts and khaki shorts. She posted the photos on Facebook.

“Being around each other helped me,� Maddie said.

Still, she found herself angry. She questioned why God would let such a thing happen.

“Grandma Peggy kept reminding us it was God’s plan,� Maddie said. They might not understand it, but there was a reason God needed Sam.

After Sam’s death, Winckowski clung tightly to the faith that had kept her grounded throughout other struggles in her life: as a divorced mother of four children, during a bout with cancer a decade ago, and as she navigated a caregiving role to her second husband, who has Parkinson’s disease and dementia.

Outside Winckowski’s house, a statue of the Virgin Mary looks over a prayer garden built for Sam. Inside, her windowsills hold figurines of cardinals — a symbol, she believes, that an angel is nearby.

At night, when the house quiets, the emptiness presses on her.

“But joy comes in the morning,� she said, a reference to her favorite Psalm.

The Breakfast Club has allowed Winckowski to follow along with high school milestones Sam missed: driver’s licenses and first girlfriends, part-time jobs and soccer championships.

Winckowski attended most of DuBourg’s home matches, where one of Sam’s jerseys would be draped over an empty chair and passed on to the hardest-working player to keep until the next game.

“Having her there for us goes a long way,� said Brian Gillick, DuBourg’s coach. “She’s the epitome of what we’re trying to do at DuBourg. We want to be a family.�

At the end of the soccer season last fall, the team honored Winckowski and Sam’s parents on senior night. The boys presented them with signed jerseys. Sam’s No. 6 has been retired.

Painting the house

In January, DuBourg seniors spend the first two weeks of the semester on service work, volunteering at homeless ministries, nursing facilities and food pantries.

Winckowski had occasionally talked about how she wanted to repaint her house. It had been a long time and was looking drab.

Four members of the Breakfast Club decided Grandma Peggy would be their senior project this year. Ken Hurd, whose daughter Claudia told him about the idea, agreed to supervise. He had seen how much Winckowski helped Claudia process her friend’s death.

“It’s therapy for Grandma Peggy, and it’s therapy for those kids,� Hurd said.

The students got the project approved by DuBourg’s administration and approached Garcia Properties to donate supplies.

Winckowski picked out a cream color for the walls, like the foam on a latte.

“It makes it brighter in there,� said Harrison Newcombe, 17, one of the painters. “It reflects the light more.�

Winckowski put the Breakfast Club on hold for the painting project. But the hiatus lasted longer than she expected.

Her daughter — Sam’s mom — was sick.

‘Two angels in Heaven’

Kim Dengler, 47, lived one street over from Winckowski. For a long time, Dengler hadn’t felt like herself. Some days, she could barely get out of bed. But that was to be expected after such a tragedy, her family thought.

“I wish we would have seen the signs,� said Winckowski.

In early January, Dengler was diagnosed with advanced multiple myeloma, a type of blood cancer. Winckowski texted her Breakfast Club. Pray for us, she asked them. Her car was in the shop, so the teen painters would drive her to the hospital to visit.

On Jan. 22, she brought her daughter home.

“I got a lot of time with her to tell her I love her,� said Winckowski.

Dengler died five days later. Winckowski gave the eulogy, at the same church where she had said goodbye to her grandson two and a half years before. Every teen that had ever been to the Breakfast Club showed up at her daughter’s funeral.

“I can’t believe I have two angels in heaven,� Winckowski said.

The Breakfast Club hadn’t met since before Christmas. But a month after she buried her daughter, Winckowski was ready. So were the kids.

Eleven teenagers showed up on the last Wednesday in February. Winckowski brought back a favorite treat: cinnamon rolls crimped in the waffle iron and drizzled with icing.

The kids seemed a lot older, somehow. They still horsed around, but they also talked about their plans after graduation in May. A few will stay in town, but many are leaving. Sam would be moving on, too.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen next year,� Winckowski said.

Olivia Gagen, one of the house painters, does. The kids will drop in on Grandma Peggy on weekends when they are home from school. They’ll call her when they have news to share or need a pick-me-up.

Olivia’s own grandmother died when she was a freshman. A few months later, she met Grandma Peggy for the first time at Sam’s wake. They hugged and cried.

“It was an instant connection,� said Olivia, 18.

Since then, she’s been to Winckowski’s home more times than she can count. Her name is neatly printed on a wallpaper lemon, just under the kitchen window.

“I’ll never stop visiting her,� Olivia said. “It’s not just breakfast. We gained each other.�