Virginia and Ken Piper Paradise Valley, Arizona

Memories

There was never a birthday, anniversary, or special occasion that wasn't marked by a handwritten note from Virginia. Her entire life, excluding the year before she died, Virginia sent out hundreds and hundreds of handwritten cards, including Christmas cards, with the most beautiful, elegant, gorgeous handwriting you ever saw. If you remembered her birthday, you'd get a two-page handwritten thank-you letter back. She had a definite system: at the beginning of every month she would organize all her cards and put a date where the stamp went so that the cards were always on time, always personal, always arriving on the exact date.

-Jean Turnmire, longtime friend

Paul Critchfield and Virginia Piper,
black-tie charity event, late '70s

Paul Critchfield remembers his first project with his Aunt Gin, in which she introduced him to the joy of giving to others. Paul was a student at the University of Tampa, built in 1891 as a beautiful winter resort once hosting Teddy Roosevelt and his Rough Riders, Sarah Bernhardt, Babe Ruth, the queen of England, and other celebrities. Each room was decorated in a different American tradition, and Paul helped Virginia select one of these rooms, now a classroom, to restore and renovate. This $3,000 project, the result of a proposal they had coauthored, this "little lesson in philanthropy," helped Paul see firsthand the far-reaching effects of philanthropy upon individual lives. Virginia invited her young nephew to dedications of buildings and groundbreaking ceremonies at Saint Francis Hospital, Loyola Medical Center, and Northwestern University. Whatever the occasion or institution, those early days for Paul were formative, demonstrating what one individual with a will to do good for others can achieve and how the world can be changed for the better, one philanthropic gift, one kindness, at a time.