“I support Grace Cottage because it’s a tremendous asset to the community. What would we do without it?,” said Brookline resident Pat Ballou, an annual donor to Grace Cottage and a loyal volunteer. “The longer you live here, the more you realize the impact Grace Cottage has on the com-munity. Just look at the doctors that are here!”

A native of Grand Forks, North Dakota, Pat met her future husband, Larry, when they were both un-dergraduates at the University of Vermont, Class of 1947. They married right after college, and started raising a family while Larry was still at UVM Medi-cal School. For four years after medical school, Larry was part of a Family Practice in Bethel, VT. “By that time, we had four children,” said Pat, “and the kids and I rarely saw Larry because he was always work-ing. We decided that this was no way to live, so he took a job as Medical Director for Firestone Tire, and we moved to Akron, Ohio.”

Larry retired in 1983 and the couple moved to Brook-line, where Larry’s parents and brother were living. When his sister-in-law, Priscilla Ballou, stepped down as President of the Valley Health Council, Larry took the position, and helped to recruit Dr. Tim Shafer and Dr. Ed Mulhern to the West River Valley.

Meanwhile, Pat, who calls herself a “professional volunteer” (although she’s held nine different pay-ing jobs during her lifetime, including positions on Wall Street, at a Madison Avenue advertising agency, and as a nurses’ aide), kept very active in the area, never refusing a request for help. “It got to the point where someone would call and I’d say, ‘I have noth-ing on the calendar that day’; pretty soon, seven days a week would be filled with volunteering, and I was exhausted. Larry said “Pat, write your own name on the calendar so that you can truthfully say you have something on the calendar that day. You don’t need to mention that it’s your own name, but everyone needs time off!” Larry died at Grace Cottage Hospital in 1996 of Hepatitis C, probably contracted when he was grow-ing up in China, the son of missionary parents. Pat continues to volunteer (although she does continue to write “Pat” on the calendar on certain days!) at Grace Cottage Foundation, at the Flower Booth at Fair Day, and for numerous other local organizations.