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                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, March 20, 1993                   TAG: 9303200322
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: LAURA WILLIAMSON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

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FAMILY CLAIMS HOMELESS MAN'S BODY

James Peters, a homeless man who died of apparent heart failure during last Saturday's blizzard, has been claimed by his family and will be buried in Lexington, his sister said Thursday.

Christine Wallace said she learned of her brother's death from a friend who read about it in Tuesday's Roanoke Times & World-News. Peters had no identification on him when he was brought to Community Hospital after collapsing in the Poff Building's post office lobby.

Peters should have been carrying a wallet that held her name and phone number, Wallace said.

Although her brother chose to live on the street, he kept in touch with her and four other surviving sisters, she said.

"I knew of his whereabouts all the time," she said, adding that Peters could have lived with family members in Lexington or Buena Vista or rented his own apartment using a monthly disability check.

For reasons she would not discuss, her brother preferred instead to live on the streets, Wallace said. Peters was often seen sleeping in the post office lobby.

"It was his lifestyle," she said. "He chose it."

Peters, 59, will be buried in a plot next to a sixth sister, Wallace said. A funeral will be held today at 11 a.m. at Lomax Funeral Home in Buena Vista.

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