When she was a little girl, Connie Paich and her sisters watched from the family car as a group of kids dumped milk on an older man outside their local Englewood grocery store. Disturbed by the harassment, Paich made a decision, says her daughter, Abigail Jorgensen: “My mom said, ‘The rest of my life is going to be dedicated to helping [the] elderly.’ That was the exact moment she knew her calling.”
That resolve never wavered.
Paich earned a degree in gerontology from the University of Northern Colorado in Greeley, then spent the next 35 years of her life caring for older adults, eventually specializing in Alzheimer’s patients. She worked in assisted living and memory care facilities and later provided in-home treatment, but her career was more than a job. “Every free moment we had was spent in nursing homes,” Jorgensen says. “If I got grounded, she would make me hike and go visit nursing homes.”…