When I save a page from my web site about Mother Teresa - http://www.peopleforever.org/nfhomepage.aspx?nfid=41 it takes up 1.73mb which is HUGE!
A similar wikipedia page takes much less. I understand I have a lot of images so it should take more space, but so much more?
When I save, I see the following files:
ScriptResource_002.js - 254 kb
mediaplayer-min-2.js - 204 kb
main.js - 194 kb
Prototype.js - 124 kb
ScriptResource.js - 96 kb
I don't understand how these files are forming and whether I can do something to decrease the page size so it loads faster?
Those .js files are Javascript files, it sounds like you're using some kind of WYSIWYG editor.
Javascript is code that is sometimes embedded in HTML files and sometimes inside their own .js files that executes on the client side.
Take a look at YSlow, it will tell you why your page is slow.
I'm not sure why your Javascript files are so large. Try something like JSMin to minimize your javascript size. If possible, merging your .js files will also improve page load time because there are less requests needed to the server for less files, but the pure size of those .js files is really killing you.