Dairyman was active in charities

4/28/2007

Henry Arnold Page, Jr., 91, president of the former Page Dairy Co. who later led capital campaign efforts for the Medical College of Ohio, died Thursday in his Sylvania home.

The cause of death was reported as vascular dementia. He had suffered a series of minor strokes, son George Page said.

A Toledo native, Mr. Page began working at the dairy in 1937 as general manager, soon after graduating from Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y.

Page Dairy was established in 1913 by his father, the late Henry A. Page, Sr. By the time it closed in 1975, it was the second-oldest dairy business in the city.

Mr. Page and his brother, Arnold Page, took over the dairy after their father's death in 1950. He generally handled the sales end of the business, and his brother was in charge of operations.

Over the years, the company produced butter, condensed milk, and fluid milk, as well as ice cream. The dairy distributed its own line of ice cream in regional stores, and operated a fleet of large-volume tank trailers and made home deliveries of milk. "My dad used to love to try new types of ice cream up until the day he passed away," George Page said. "And that was his favorite part of the business."

Several weeks after the dairy closed, Mr. Page joined what was then the Medical College of Ohio at Toledo Foundation as its director of development.

Before and after his retirement from the dairy business, Mr. Page organized capital campaigns on behalf of the American Red Cross, the Greater Toledo Community Chest, the Boys and Girls Club, Toledo Hospital, and the then-St. Vincent Hospital, among other area organizations.

For high school, he attended Cranbrook School in Bloomfield Hills, Mich.

He was an avid golfer, playing until he was 83.

In 1948, married Kate P. Bancroft. She died in 1999.

Surviving are his daughter, Karen Sobol; sons, Henry Page III and George Page; brother, Arnold Page, and one granddaughter.

A celebration of life will begin after 4 p.m. May 5 at Mr. Page's Sylvania home, 4343 Todd Drive. There will be no visitation. Arrangements are being handled by J. Jeffrey Fretti Funeral Home, Sylvania.

The family suggests tributes to the Boys and Girls Club of Toledo, the Toledo Area Humane Society, or Hospice of Northwest Ohio.