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John Arthur Jarvis, headmaster emeritus of Lancaster Country Day School, is being remembered by friends, associates, former students and teachers as an extraordinary school and community leader for more than 40 years.
Jarvis died Saturday morning at his home at The Glen at Willow Valley after receiving a cancer diagnosis Oct. 12, a family member reported. He was 84 and, until 2005, had long resided at 230 N. Charlotte St. with his wife of 60 years, Sally Melcher Jarvis.
"John was the quintessential community organizer — of his neighborhood, of his school, of everything," said Arthur Mann, who served with Jarvis on the Hourglass Foundation and whose children attended Lancaster Country Day School.
"He was a great guy, a very civic-minded, dedicated person," Lancaster Mayor Rick Gray said. The mayor noted that even after Jarvis moved from the city to the suburban retirement community, "he remained totally dedicated to the city, its diversity, its culture, its education."
Jarvis' absence will be a challenge to everybody in the county to follow his great example of service, Mann said. "I don't know who would replace him."
Jarvis, headmaster of Lancaster Country Day School from 1965-1990, was especially active in the Lancaster community after his retirement.
He served as president of Historic Preservation Trust of Lancaster County and was the first president of The Charlotte Street Association, which encouraged neighborhood beautification.
"He was a sincere historian and a good friend," said longtime neighbor Bud Callman, who served on the association's committee.
Jarvis was a founding member of the Hourglass Foundation. He was also chairman of the Mayor's Committee on Public Housing and was a member of the Lancaster City Planning Commission.
Jarvis had served on Lancaster City 250 Celebration board of directors and chairman of the education committee. He also served on the board of Success by Six, Preservation Pennsylvania and Southcentral Pennsylvania Education Committee.
He received the Lancaster New Era Red Rose in 1990.
"John inspired trust," Mann said. "His agenda was clear," never hidden, and that transparency enabled him to persuade people to commit their time and money to the causes he championed.
Gray predicted Jarvis' contributions to his school and community will be felt for generations to come.
Moved to LancasterJarvis came to Lancaster Country Day School from the position of assistant headmaster at Episcopal Academy, Philadelphia, where he began his teaching career in 1949.
"We'll be forever grateful that he came with us," said Caroline Steinman Nunan, a director of Lancaster Newspapers, whose children attended the school and who served on the school board.
Linda Lestz Weidman was a senior at the school when Jarvis arrived for what she believes was his first school with girls.
"He created a special bond with us when he put on his kilt and played field hockey with us," she recalled. "You could hardly help but be enchanted by him," she said of the man who emigrated from Scotland to marry his American wife.
"He was like Mr. Chips," Weidman said, referring to the beloved educator in the book and film "Goodbye Mr. Chips."
Jarvis became a friend of the family and later succeeded Weidman on the board of The Historic Preservation Trust.
Weidman said he had a vision that "went beyond preservation of the built environment to preservation of the quality of life here." And he would would "stand up for things in the most passionate, controlled, persuasive manner. ... He wasn't a shouter. He wasn't a bully," she added.
Jarvis championed not only the city and its architecture but surrounding farmland and waterways.
Lancaster Country Day School teacher Mike Simpson is a Country Day "lifer" who met Jarvis as a 4-year-old nursery school student there. He said he was devastated when Jarvis retired just before his own 1991 graduation. But Jarvis was always back on campus for graduations and fundraisers, Simpson added.
Jarvis lavished personal attention on students, presenting them with pencil sketches of themselves whether they made the honor roll or were called to his office for a lecture, Simpson recalled.
"Everything great about Country Day today is because of John Jarvis," he said, recollecting the ideals of learning and service he instilled there.
"He was a guy from a whole different era — and almost a whole different universe," Simpson reflected.
Mel Kohn, of Westchester County, N.Y., was hired by Jarvis and taught history there from 1980-86. Though he left, they still kept in touch, with Kohn returning regularly to attend the Jarvises' famous Christmas open house and soup supper.
"I never thought that John Jarvis would pass away, because I never thought of him as a person but as an extraordinary human being," Kohn said, "someone who would live forever."
Sunday News staffer Chip Smedley, whom Jarvis also hired as a history teacher, posted news of Jarvis' passing on his Facebook page and reported being quickly inundated with posts.
"You got an education from every moment spent with him," one said. "Never have I known anyone so genuinely great in leadership and inspiration," another said.
Smedley said he especially appreciated the scholarship program Jarvis nurtured at the school, allowing a broader range of students to attend.
Daughter Sarah Porter Jarvis, of Havertown, recalled that when her father was asked what he taught (meaning the subject), he always answered, "I teach boys and girls."
He also taught history classes.
Jarvis had served as president of the Pennsylvania Association of Private Academic Schools and was a member of Country Day School Headmasters Association.
London nativeBorn in London, England, and raised in Scotland, he was the son of the late Rev. Ernest David and Clara Lois Reid Jarvis.
Jarvis attended Kelvinside Academy, Glasgow, and evacuated to the Highlands in 1939 after World War II began. He attended St. Andrews University, Scotland, from 1942-43 and from 1947-48, earning his Master of Arts degree. He earned his Master of Science in Education degree in 1954 at the University of Pennsylvania.
Jarvis was commissioned in March 1944 in Bangalore, South India, into the Mahratta Light Infantry. He served in India and Japan during the occupation. He demobilized in January 1947, returning to Scotland.
He immigrated to the United States in March 1949 and served as camp director of Big Brothers Camp, Stillwater, N.J., that summer.
He was an elder at First Presbyterian Church and a member of St. Andrews Society of Philadelphia.
Jarvis was also the founding commodore of the Pequeanauts canoeing group.
He enjoyed walking the Appalachian Trail, building brick walls in his garden, painting watercolors, carving wood and making stained glass.
A map maker and historian, Jarvis copyrighted several maps, including ones of Lancaster, The Lost Kingdom of the Susquehannocks, Donegal Presbyterian Church, The Pequea Valley, Pocono Lake Preserve, The Land of the Glaciers, and in the book "A Child's Guide to Lancaster County," produced with the late Gerald S. Lestz.
Several friends used the words "Renaissance man" to describe a man with a wide range of interests.
"He never had a dull moment," daughter Sarah said. She noted he became an accomplished artist though he didn't have an art lesson until he was past 60. He not only made maps in pen and ink and painted watercolors, she said, but was something of a tattoo artist, drawing cats, dragons, snakes in pen on the hands of delighted students and grandchildren.
Jarvis married Sally Melcher, whom he met while at St. Andrews, on Sept. 1, 1949.
Surviving in addition to his wife and daughter Sarah are: son Andrew and daughter Anne Reid Gerbner, both of Chestnut Hill; and daughter Virginia Jarvis Whelan, of Marion Station. Eight grandchildren also survive.
Saturday evening the family was making funeral arrangements that will be announced later.
Lori Van Ingen, an Intelligencer Journal/New Era staff writer, also contributed to this article.
Jo-Ann Greene is a Sunday News staff writer. Her e-mail address is jgreene@lnpnews.com.
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