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IN THIS ISSUE
From the Desk of
Fr. John Madigan, O.M.I.
Our Woven Past: Oblate Paths to Sainthood
The Lives of the Saints: St. Ambrose
Fr. John Maronic, O.M.I.: The Path to Sainthood Begins
Donor Highlight
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East Coast Native |
If you know and love the phrase, “Bloom where you are planted,” then chances are you’ll love the story of Beverly Jarvis. Beverly was born in Vermont and, in fact, was a seventh generation Vermonter. So her roots there went deep – very deep. It was hard for her to imagine living anywhere else – except for New York City, where she moved right after college in the early 1950s.
Beverly easily took to her life as a young career woman. She rented an apartment off Park Avenue and worked in retail for Saks 34th Street. She loved her job, and was on the fast track in the company’s executive training program when an illness disrupted her budding career. After Beverly’s second bout with rheumatic fever, her mother, Connie, decided to take matters into her own hands. Connie went to New York to bring her only child back home where she could care for her. That same day, Beverly’s father suffered a heart attack.
Doctors suggested that a more temperate climate would be better for both Beverly’s health and her father’s, so the family moved to Phoenix, Arizona.
“I feel I grew up with Phoenix,” Beverly explains. “When we first moved here, it felt very much like a small town with not a whole lot going on. Now Phoenix is a very cosmopolitan city. There’s a new attitude and sophistication about it. Living here is wonderful. I get up every morning, and there’s sunshine!”
Before long Beverly’s health greatly improved, but job opportunities in retail were not as available as in New York City. With her characteristic determination she started a new career – teaching marketing education to high school students. After thirty years of teaching she retired in 1992.
Undoubtedly Beverly’s former students will take special interest in the upcoming presidential elections. The school where Beverly taught was a polling place, and during each election Beverly volunteered her classroom as a voting site and taught her students about the election process and importance of voting.
“In the early 1960s there was a bond election in our area,” Beverly explains. “When I got home from work that day I remembered that my parents and I hadn’t yet voted, so we all went to the polling place together. Residents were voting on a bond that would increase taxes to make badly needed repairs on some schools in the district. The bond passed by three votes!”
Despite her busy career Beverly maintained an active schedule in her parish and in the community. When she retired she took on even more projects, always focusing on education or parish life. She taught GED and religious education classes, and served two terms as president of the parish Women’s Guild. While Beverly often takes her volunteer work for granted, others do not. In June she received the Outstanding Catholic Women award from the Phoenix Council of Catholic Women.
For the past five years Beverly has struggled with complications from diabetes and at times is unable to leave her home. Still she leads two important ministries in her parish. She organizes funeral luncheons, sometimes for 200 or more people, making sure grieving families have a welcoming meal. She also coordinates a group of parishioners who make and distribute rosaries.
“We’ve given away thousands of rosaries,” Beverly says proudly. “It’s an important part of our faith. More people are coming back to the rosary, so we’re getting more requests for them. Many times in my life I’ve prayed the rosary and that has helped hold me together. I want others to find that same strength in the rosary.”
Beverly considers another part of her life a ministry to others – and that is her support of the Missionary Oblates. She has named the Oblates in her will and donates annually to the National Shrine of Our Lady of the Snows and to Oblate seminarians.
“My mother didn’t have any sons, so supporting Oblate seminarians became very important to her, and that’s become important to me as well,” says Beverly. “I can tell the Oblate seminarians have the right attitude about their faith and are working to help the poor. I want them to receive the training they need.”
Like Beverly Jarvis, Oblate seminarians surely will learn the beauty of blooming – wherever they are planted.
“My mother wrote many times how much she loved me and what a good daughter I was to her, but the most important thing she wrote to me not long before she died was to put myself in Our Blessed Mother’s hands, and I’d be all right,” recalls Beverly. “Toward the end of her life when Mother was very sick, a nurse told me that she was holding on for my sake and that I should let her know it was okay to die so she wouldn’t suffer anymore. When I asked Mother if she wanted to die, she said, ‘No. Every day there is something to live for.’ That’s the way she lived her life, even when she was in pain.” Beverly’s relationship with her mother Connie remains strong – in the words of that letter, and in the memories of the many years they shared together. |
When Beverly Jarvis’s friends and family
think of her, they automatically think of her
mother, Connie Jarvis, as well. Until Connie died in
2005 at the age of 98, the two were inseparable.
They lived, volunteered and vacationed together.
More than fifty years ago, Connie recognized
that she and Beverly had a special bond so she
began writing a letter to pass on to Beverly
when she died. The letter contains instructions
on what to do with family assets, but it also
contains words that have helped Beverly cope
with the loss of her mother.