At age 96, Harlan Cooper Paige has been a hospice volunteer for over 25 years. Together with his late wife Beatrice, he joined the Friends of Hospice, hand cleaning and updating donor lists. Soon after the first inpatient facility opened, he upgraded to a staff position, putting his experience with diesel engines to work as Director of Engineering and maintenance working the kinks out of the diesel run physical plant. He retired a second time and went back to working in the development department. (Meanwhile Bea was a mainstay in the gift shop.) In 1990 both Harlan and Bea were among the Hospice volunteers who were awarded Points of Light. When he lost his beloved wife after a long illness, it was the opportunity to return to Hospice more regularly than he focused on.

He has always been guided by a desire to make a positive difference in the world by being of service to others. One of the best stories of Harlan's contributions to Hospice is the time he used his engineer's mind to join the beds of a long-married elderly couple, both patients, so they could continue to be comfort to each other through the nights.

Harlan was born and raised in Massachusetts and was educated at Thayer Academy and M.I.T. graduating in 1928 with a degree in electro-chemical engineering. He went work for the New York New Haven and Hartford Railroad in New Haven before and again after the depression. In 1952, he moved to the Locomotive division of G.E. in Erie, PA.

Throughout his adult life he was active in his church, serving on Boards and as Superintendent of the Sunday School. He has been a proficient amateur photographer and avid reader, and while he does less of these things today, he still reads the Wall Street Journal on a daily basis.

In 1972 Harlan retired, moved to Branford remodeling and winterizing the Summer cottage where he had visited his grandparents as a child. He lives there still, recently joined by his daughter, Carlin.