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When 8-year-old Peter Paine suffered the double insult of polio and
encephalitis in the 1940s, he did not shrink from resolve.
   
He learned to play the organ, using his fingers and legs not only to
make music but also as therapy against the paralysis from the polio.
He became so proficient that a scholarship for private lessons in New
York City offered promise of a career, and he was tempted, said his
wife, Pamela.
   
He loved music, she said, but he loved chemistry more. With a Bachelor
of Science degree from Brigham Young University and then a Master of
Science from the University of Washington, both in his chosen field,
he set out on a career in technology.
   
In Seattle, he worked for Boeing for five years, researching the
materials for use on nose cones in early space vehicles.
   
In Pittsburgh, he worked for Carnegie-Mellon Institute as a researcher
and later for Westinghouse in its nuclear power division. His
specialty was finding ways to minimize the corrosion in power plant
steam generators. Over the course of his career, which ultimately led
to the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) in Palo Alto, he
advanced that specialty, primarily in efforts to prolong the life of
existing power plants.
   
Mr. Paine was considered one of the U.S. experts--"in the top
echelon"--of the field, said Ray Lambert, a colleague who manages
EPRI's work in the storage of spent fuel from nuclear reactors.
   
In Pittsburgh, Mr. Paine also devoted himself to service in the Church
of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He rose to bishop of his ward
and a member of the larger stake high council.
   
When Mr. Paine and his wife, Pamela, brought their five children to
California in the late 1970s, they continued their involvement as
Mormons, and Mr. Paine kept playing his music--at the organ and the
piano.
   
In the Almaden Second Ward, Mr. Paine became an adoptive father for
several single-parent families. "He was like a grandpa," said Laura
Jane Wallace, now nearly 12, who got to play games with Mr. Paine when
he and Pamela visited Laura Jane's mother and her five other children.
   
And Mr. Paine provided the avuncular advice for such sons and
daughters, Pamela Paine said, "when mother wouldn't let them drive the
car whenever they wanted to."
   
In 1984, Peter Paine suffered a stroke that partially paralyzed his
right side: Once again he was robbed of his ability to play the organ
and the piano. Within six weeks, he was back at work, Lambert said,
supervising his research crews.
   
Yet, medical misfortune continued to dog his family. In 1985, the
Paines' son Joel, who had served as a missionary for his church and
attended De Anza College, learned he had cardiomyopathy, a serious
heart illness. He chose not to undergo a heart transplant and died of
a heart attack at the age of 23. [CURE Comment: Perhaps, Joel
realized that a heart transplant removes the beating heart of a
living donor.]
   
At EPRI, some thought Peter Paine's mobility would be compromised
after his stroke, Lambert said, but Mr. Paine continued to travel the
world, attending meetings and delivering technical papers.
   
Because his right hand was of little use, he learned to write
left-handed. His regular birthday and Valentine card-giving approached
200, said Pamela Paine. At his church, he became sacrament meeting
coordinator, which involved organizing each ward meeting.
   
Then a heart attack at work left Mr. Paine lifeless. He was revived,
but the damage to his kidneys was severe. Although he returned home
for a time, his kidneys failed March 29 and he was pronounced dead on
his arrival at a San Jose hospital.
   
Joseph Peter Nelson Paine was 56.
   
"He probably was as good a Christian as I've ever known," said William
Homer, a longtime friend who is also a Mormon public affairs  officer.
"He went to extraordinary lengths to take care of people who needed
help."
   
Lambert put it another way: "He appeared to many as a stern person,
but he had an extremely soft side. He would do anything for anybody,
and he did."
   
[Obituary: Peter Paine, Who Didn't Let Health Keep Him from Work,
Music, Church, San Jose Mercury News, April 6, 1995]

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