Donald Paige, 91; preacher dedicated 70 years to his craft

Rev. Donald Paige listened as a bagpiper played after he retired from Christ United in Kingston, R.I.

Nobody ever fell asleep during one of the Rev. Donald Paige's sermons.

"Papa had a loud, booming voice. . . . Sometimes, he would slam down his fist for emphasis and break the eyeglasses he was holding," Jaclyn Paige of Danvers said about her adored grandfather, who always had a full church.

"If you weren't there on a Sunday, you could expect a postcard from him as a reminder," she said. "Papa loved people, and they loved him."

A preacher for 70 years, Rev. Paige, died Sunday, at Hunt Nursing and Rehabilitation Home in Danvers the day after attending the funeral of his wife, Crystle Moorehouse Paige, whom he had married nine years ago. He was 91 and had been in failing health for several years.

Cathy MacGovern of the Preachers' Aid Society in Plymouth, said yesterday that Rev. Paige had the longest years of service in the New England Conference of the United Methodist Church. He was an active pastor for 46 years and then continued to serve churches "until the last years of his life," she said.

The last of those years of service was at the Church of St. Alban in Lynn, the former All Saints Church he attended as a boy, said its vicar, the Rev. Evan Mwangi, who said Rev. Paige helped him out and gave sermons until last year.

Rev. Paige was so determined to continue his clerical duties, said his son and daughter-in-law, Jerome and Janet Paige of Danvers, that he recently had them carry him up the steps of St. Alban.

Jerome Paige said his father never went anywhere without his Roman collar.

"Dad's ministry was what he was, not what he did for a living," said Janet Paige.

The content of Rev. Paige's sermons were as memorable as his delivery.

He would take a Biblical passage and relate it to his own life or to someone in the news to make a point.

"He tried to make the Bible more real to people," said Jaclyn Paige. "He was always trying to give you a piece of himself in his sermons."

Retired Air Force Brigadier General Joseph Waller of Wakefield, R.I., said that when Rev. Paige was assigned in 1998 to Christ United Methodist Church in Kingston, R.I., where he stayed until 2006, the congregation averaged about 60, not large enough for a full-time minister.

"In Rev. Paige, we got a part-time minister who worked an 80-hour week," Waller said. He got the church a new steeple, a new carillon system, and a paved parking lot.

Wherever Rev. Paige was assigned as pastor, church membership rose, said his daughter Donna Thayer of East Bridgewater.

Holy Trinity Methodist Church in Danvers had a membership in the mid-50s when Rev. Paige became its pastor, she said, and by the time he left 15 years later some 500 people were showing up for Sunday services.

When he decided to head a private fund-raising drive to build a new church, he went around the community and met everyone he could, she said. "It didn't matter if they were not Methodists," she said. "Dad welcomed everyone into his church and they went."

Donald Elliott Paige was born in Lynn, the only child of Walden and Mabel (Boyer) Paige. His father was a meat-cutter, and his mother ran the cafeteria system in the Lynn schools.

Rev. Paige heard his calling to the ministry early in life. As a child he used to put his father's shirts on backward to simulate a clerical collar and gather neighborhood children so he could preach to them, Waller recalled Rev. Paige saying.

Rev. Paige used his mother's best linens and curtains for playing church service in their garage, his daughter said.

Janet Paige said he preached his first sermon when he was 16 at the now-defunct St. Luke's Church in Lynn.

Rev. Paige was valedictorian of his 1934 graduating class at Lynn English High School. He received a bachelor's degree from Boston University's College of Liberal Arts in 1938 and became an ordained Methodist minister that year. He earned a master's degree from BU in 1940 and a bachelor of sacred theology degree from BU in 1941.

Rev. Paige did his ministerial internship at the First United Methodist Church in Lynn from 1935 to 1939, then served in the Gleasondale United Methodist Church in Stow from 1939 to 1941. His next ministry was at the First United Methodist Church in Clinton from 1941 to 1942.

He first met Louise Cairns of Clinton, at a youth fellowship rally when he was in Gleasondale.

"The minute he saw her, he knew she was the only one," said their daughter, Donna Thayer. The couple married in 1941 and settled in Clinton. Her death in 1997 was a great blow to Rev. Paige, said his son.

At the outbreak of World War II, Rev. Paige knew he had to help. In 1942, he joined the US Army Air Force and was assigned as chaplain in Foggia, Italy. When he completed his military service in 1945, he returned to his Clinton pastorate.

He later served at churches in Easthampton, Gardner, Danvers, Malden and Revere, Sagamore, and Brockton, and was chaplain at the Malden Fire Department. His last pastoral appointment was at Christ United in Kingston, R.I., He retired from there at age 70 to the accompaniment of a bagpiper, his favorite music.

Perhaps the minister's one flaw, said his son, was his driving, which he continued until he was 90. "Dad always thought he was an excellent driver," he said, but there was no slow shift on his car."

In addition to his son and daughter, Rev. Paige leaves another daughter, Janet Jones of Humble, Texas; another son, Robert, also of Humble; 12 grandchildren; and 16 great-grandchildren.

A funeral service will be held at 10 a.m. today at the Church of St. Alban in Lynn. Burial will be in Woodlawn Cemetery in Clinton.