Kerry P. Brennan, Headmaster, The Roxbury Latin School
West Roxbury, Massachusetts
February 7, 2019

Frank Washington Jarvis, III, Tony Jarvis was born to his namesake father and Prudence Crandall in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on June 24th, 1939. His idyllic, mid-century boyhood was spent in Painesville, Ohio, an experience that would provide fodder for many improving stories that Tony told over the years. Among the stories that Tony often told was the tale of his being put on a train in Northeast Ohio and being sent to St. Mark’s School in Southborough, MA when he was14 years old. St. Mark’s proved influential in opening Tony’s head and heart to the promise of independent schools, to scholarly pursuits, to art and music, and a life of faith. On he went to Harvard College, followed soon by graduate work at St. John’s College, Cambridge, and then training at the Episcopal Theological School in Cambridge, MA, on his way to the priesthood.

Once ordained to the Episcopal priesthood, Tony returned to his home diocese in Ohio and was assigned to a large, prosperous parish, St. Paul’s, Cleveland Heights. It was there, serving as curate, that Tony achieved his first blast of fame by creating and leading a youth group famous throughout the City of Cleveland. These were the days of great cultural churn with protests against the war in Vietnam, marches on behalf of Civil Rights and the general empowering of young people. Tony was able to harness that potential in countless teens and turn them toward productive civic engagement and God. Many of his Confirmation class were not only not Episcopalians, but some were even Jewish! Tony’s acclaim in this capacity attracted the attention of the legendary Headmaster of University School, Rowland McKinley, who invited Tony to teach a course or two at US, and, eventually to become a full-time faculty member with leadership responsibilities including chairing the history department and serving as assistant director of the Upper School. In the short time Tony was at US, he also became a legend establishing new expectations and designing along with his contemporary and pal, Rick Hawley, a way breaking, two year course in Western Civilization.

From his perch at US, Tony was called in 1974 to become the Headmaster of The Roxbury Latin School in Boston. The oldest school in continuous existence in North America, RL, like many of the country’s schools, had gone through a rough patch in the late 60's and early 70's with financial and programmatic concerns, and trustees who felt the school had lost its way. Although Tony had little experience in school administration, he took on the assignment with relish. His first years were difficult and included fierce conflicts with certain faculty and the re-making of the School’s philosophy and values. Eventually he was able to appoint “his own people,” and established RL over his thirty years as Headmaster as a leading light in independent education. Tony was notoriously thrifty and the School’s financial model reflected his intention that Rl become a need-blind school in which any talented, committed Boston boy could afford it and find a scholarly home. Tony made the school organically diverse – especially socio-economically, but racially and religiously as well. Tony’s thriftfulness was demonstrated over the years in countless other ways. Any one who ever had the pleasure of staying with Tony could not help but notice the dozens of bottles of bathroom products – soaps and creams and lotions – that he had rescued from various hotel rooms and made available in his own bathrooms. Nor could one fail to notice the single package of cut up fruit with a long ago expiration date that was the sole occupant of his refrigerator.

It is in his role as Headmaster of Roxbury Latin that Tony had his greatest impact. He built buildings and he garnered interest and acclaim from around the world for the school he had built and ran, but Tony’s most important calling was to the boys of his school – each and every one – whom he insisted we all “know and love.” Throughout his 30 years, Tony taught – sometimes his beloved Western Civ, often senior English, and frequently in famous slide lectures of Greek and Roman architecture and sculpture (“notice the sensuous S curves, boys,” he would recommend), Renaissance painting and Gothic cathedrals. In part his insistence that RL remain intimate (fewer than 290 boys in his time) was so that Tony could model the generalist spirit that he expected of his faculty and every boy. Not only was he a keenly attentive advisor to a dozen or so boys, but every boy in the school was eligible to be beckoned into Tony’s office for a note of approval about an athletic contest or concert over the weekend, or an admonition because he had heard the kid had bombed his Greek test or was teetering on the edge of too risky a social life. He loved the boys. And that is what he would want me to say about him.

Many of us in this room benefitted from Tony’s example and his freely offered advice. In this setting, which he loved, Tony would inevitably have the first hand up to ask a provocative, challenging question of a speaker he often thought was too soft or too politically correct. Many of us sought his counsel and he gave it without equivocation. He was clear about all matters. He was a proud Republican deep in the bluest of states, Massachusetts. He was an unapologetic contrarian. But the best part is that he always preferred the friendship to any role that made him smarter than or better than others. Tony served this organization and the Country Day School Headmasters Association as president; he received a handful of honorary degrees; he wrote several books – including the popular , WITH LOVE AND PRAYERS, a collection of his assembly talks; and he offered sermons and workshops across the globe. Tony was a faithful teacher and a devoted friend.

When Tony retired from RL he taught and served as chaplain at Eton College for a couple years (a dream come true considering his Anglophilic penchant and also that the Queen Mother, his great hero, was often in residence at Windsor, a stone’s throw away) , and then he answered the call to become the first director of the Educational Leadership and Ministry Program at the Berkeley Divinity School at Yale. Throughout his Headmastership, Tony served his beloved Anglo-Catholic parish, All Saints Ashmont, in Boston’s Dorchester neighborhood, as priest associate and, occasionally, interim rector.

Tony was one of a kind. And a blessing. It was my privilege to have worked for him as a young teacher and then to have succeeded him as Headmaster; I could not have asked for a more supportive predecessor. Given his faith, it was no surprise that Tony decided to end treatment for his cancer last summer. He looked forward to life after death and he died on a Sunday, October 7th. He is survived by a brother-in-law, a niece and two nephews, one of whom Ned Smith is in our ranks. He’s also survived by hundreds of boys whom he knew and loved. A memorial service will be held for him at Roxbury Latin on Sunday, May 5th. We shall never know his kind again. Ave atque vale.