Reminiscent smiles beamed from the faces of students, parishioners and friends at St. Thomas Aquinas Church as they shared memories of Monsignor James A. Supple at his visitation service Thursday.

Supple, who founded St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Church and Student Center, died Sunday at age 91 after battling pneumonia.

Rev. Everett Hemann, pastor at St. Thomas Aquinas, said about 225 people attended Thursday’s visitation for Supple. He said the church was anticipating more than 1,000 people would attend Friday’s funeral service.

“I didn’t know him very well but he always had a cute little smile and a funny joke,” said Meggan Stone, senior in music. “We went to sing Christmas carols once and he’d come out and sing along.”

Michael McClimon, senior in architecture, also recalled singing Christmas carols at Supple’s house.

“He came out and told us a joke. It was half in English and half in Spanish and he recited it from memory,” McClimon said.

With help from Hemann, they remembered the beginning of the joke.

“‘Twas the night before Christmas, Carumba, Carumba,” they recited as they began to laugh.

“At the end, after he said the punch line, he’d start laughing before anyone else,” McClimon said.

Supple’s legacy includes an endowment fund providing scholarships as well as funding for campus ministry, and the James A. Supple Chair of Catholic Studies at Iowa State, which enables the university to offer classes in Catholic thought and tradition.

One of Supple’s jokes was ‘you’ll never see a U-haul following a hearse,’ and for Supple that is true, said John Donaghy, campus minister at St. Thomas Aquinas. Instead of a U-Haul, the many people he touched will be following his hearse, Donaghy said.

The funeral service for Supple will be 11 a.m. Friday at St. Thomas Aquinas.