The Pipers' new home in Paradise Valley was Mediterranean-style, serene, and elegant, reflecting Virginia's need for harmony, order, and beauty. In a letter to Charlene Piper, a relative of Ken's, dated June 25, 1978, Virginia described their happy life during this time.

Virginia and Ken

Ken was an outstanding man, handsome, vital, intelligent, warm, gracious, witty, and wonderful. Our home, located in an area enchantingly called Paradise Valley, was brand-new, bright and cheery, and really custom made for us. We had scores of friends,his, mine, and ours,many through our Motorola affiliation, and soon we had many more. We became involved in numerous projects, traveled a good bit, entertained frequently. Ken, a born crusader, participated in numbers of local causes,medical and rising costs, for one. He was on numerous boards and served as chairman of the board of directors for the Arizona Heart Institute.

Christina Critchfield-Huber, Paul Critchfield's daughter by his first wife, Susie, and sister to Kendell Critchfied, remembers Ken Piper with great fondness:

I first knew Ken when I was four years old. It was Christmastime, and I remember Virginia pretending she was Mrs. Claus, saying, "Oh, let's call Santa Claus before he comes,let's give a special message to Santa Claus!" I was so excited! Meanwhile, Ken would be in the next room, waiting to appear as Santa Claus. Ken was the most awesome man. There are such strong women in my family, Virginia and my grandmother, Mimi. And Ken was really like, well, "the softer side of Sears." They were an awesome team. You knew you could just hug the guy, and he and Virginia just really enjoyed and loved one another so much.

During the brief time Ken and Virginia lived together in Arizona, Virginia served on advisory boards for the bishop of Phoenix, the Franciscan Renewal Center, and the Scottsdale Girls Club. Back in Chicago, projects funded by the Paul V. Galvin Charitable Trust continued, and in June 1973, Virginia was presented with an honorary degree from DePaul University. A particularly meaningful tribute to Virginia occurred June 8, 1974, at Mundelein College's forty-third annual commencement exercise. With Ken and other invited guests present to share in her honor, Virginia, as a former Chicagoan and administrator of the Paul V. Galvin Charitable Trust, was awarded the honorary degree Doctor of Humane Letters for her role in providing the Paul V. Galvin Memorial Hall and establishing the Galvin Scholars Program and for her years of devotion to Mundelein College. In tribute to Virginia, Daniel G. Cahill, vice president of development, read the following citation during the commencement:

Her rapport with young people and her desire to become more personally involved in the needs of the younger generation influenced her decision to distribute the assets of the charitable trust established by her late husband, Paul V. Galvin, to Mundelein, Notre Dame, Loyola, DePaul, Northwestern, and other midwestern educational institutions. Saint Francis Hospital, Evanston, and Saint Joseph Hospital in Chicago received substantial shares of the estate as evidence of her regard for the health needs of Chicagoans. Typically, her role in these and countless other generosities is usually anonymous. The memorials established in Mr. Galvin's name reflect not only his concern for the young and the ailing but also Virginia G. Piper's determination that his dreams be fulfilled. Her concern does not stop with the dedication of a building or the implementation of a program. The progress of Galvin Scholars at Mundelein, for example, and their achievements after graduation are followed avidly by Mrs. Piper, who writes of her "vicarious involvement in the careers of our Mundelein daughters."

From her spacious, light-filled home office, Virginia continued to conduct a massive volume of personal and business correspondence, the former handwritten on cards or her custom-made blue-bordered stationery, the latter typed on the old manual Royal typewriter that she used to the end of her days, refusing all offers of electric typewriters, word processors, or computers. Every bit of correspondence that made its way off Virginia's enormous desk was from her own hand, a phenomenal feat indicating the heart and sincerity she placed in her relationships with people, whether by taking the extra time to write a warm personal note or hand-typing a more formal business reply. Here, for example, is an excerpt from a personal letter of Virginia's written to Sister Elaine Cabellier, administrator of Marillac College in St. Louis, on April 16, 1974:

Dear Sister Elaine:

Thank you very much for your letter, referring so affectionately to Sister Bertrande, who was, as perhaps you know, very, very special to me, too. During 1948, when I was taking my instructions in Catholicism, I had the wonderful privilege of visiting with her on many private sessions of added "instructions." How I loved those visits and looked forward to them. We would go upstairs to a small guest bedroom at Marillac House and talk about God for one or two hours. She was never too busy for those wonderful talks. I know very well what you mean when you say you loved her dearly and learned much from her spiritually. Sister Bertrande was a very special person. By example she influenced many others to do and give their best to draw from themselves more than they had imagined existed within.

Paul V. Galvin Life Science Center at
Notre Dame University

Both Ken and Virginia loved to entertain, to host parties and charity events, the most remarkable of which was the dedication of the Paul V. Galvin Life Science Center at Notre Dame University in 1972. Loading a hired bus with some forty specially invited guests, Virginia had the entire group driven to Notre Dame from Chicago. All the guests attended an impressive banquet, where Virginia, in inimitable fashion, surprised the university and its president, Father Hesburgh, by presenting another check for $250,000 to purchase equipment for the Science Center. The entire day-long event was a superbly orchestrated, fabulously fun occasion, and on the bus ride back to Chicago, Ken fixed his famous Bloody Marys for everyone. The dedication was a celebration those who were fortunate enough to attend would remember and talk fondly about for years. Severene Orth, longtime friend of Virginia and Ken's, and her husband Ray, a Motorola employee for thirty-six years (the last twenty-two as administrative assistant to Ken), were two of those guests.

In remembering Virginia, Severene said:

Ken idolized her. He was a mentor to my husband, Ray, so Ray felt about Ken like I did about Virginia. They were very special people, and you would do anything for them. She had something beyond charisma. You just knew this was an individual God put on this earth for a very certain reason. You know the phrase "Angels among us"? She was a tremendous inspiration.