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Reverend Jarvis was born on May 21, 1935 in Dallas, Texas, the son of Dr. Joseph B and Helen (Labadie) Jarvis. The son of a radiologist who served in the Army in World War II, and an Osage Indian nurse, they lived in various places including the Osage Reservation until they finally settled near Tacoma, Washington where Michael grew up and developed a life long love of woods and mountains, hunting, fishing, hiking, camping, and model railroading, which he passed on to his children as well.
He enjoyed sports, and was a competition shooter in high school and college. He graduated from the University of Washington School of Forestry in 1959. But after a life-changing encounter with God in the mountains, he entered the San Francisco Theological Seminary, graduating in 1962. It was there where he met and married the love of his life, Mary, with whom he had four children and a life of loving companionship.
He then served in churches in the mountains of Colorado before moving back closer to the reservation, serving a church in Halstead, Kansas. However, when the war in Vietnam escalated, he felt he should serve the country, so in 1967 he was commissioned into the US Army as a Chaplain, and went to Vietnam in 1968-1970. In Vietnam, he served at the 86th Evacuation Hospital, caring for wounded soldiers straight from the battlefield, and their hospital was attacked as well. He was honorably discharged in California, and after serving churches there, moved back to his beloved Pacific Northwest, first to Oregon, and finally back to Washington state. To become an Episcopal priest, he attended the Church Divinity School of the Pacific in Berkeley from 1983-1984, then served churches in Oak Harbor and Marysville, Washington, where he retired in 1997.
After retirement, he moved back to the Osage reservation
in Oklahoma, to live in the family home, where he loved
to putter in the yard and mostly sit and watch the cows
in the pasture, study the Bible, build a magnificent
model railroad, and chat with relatives. However, he
always loved to teach and preach, and did take up the
cloth and conduct services in Pawhuska and Tulsa from
time to time, and taught at the local Christian college
for a semester.
Toward the end of life he suffered increasingly from
PTSD from Vietnam, chronic illness, and dementia. When
Mary died from cancer last year, it was a blow that he
never recovered from. He became increasingly frail, and
when he got aspiration pneumonia, he came home on
hospice last week. Then it was a blessedly short illness
that peacefully took him in his sleep to his Savior and
to Mary on April 7th, 2014.
Mike and the family have always been grateful to the staff of the Pawhuska Indian Health Clinic, Osage Nation Home Health, and the nurses and physicians at Jane Phillips Hospital. We especially want to acknowledge the wonderful caring people of Comforting Hands Hospice and Rivercross Hospice and his caregiver, Terri O'Neal. And we cannot express our gratitude enough to our many relatives here in Oklahoma that he enjoyed sharing so much time with, and who helped our parents out so much as they aged.
Reverend Jarvis was 78 years old at the time of death at the family home outside of Pawhuska.
Reverend Jarvis was preceded in death by his wife Mary last year, and is survived by his brother Dr. David (Pat) Jarvis of Seattle, Washington. Surviving children are, John, of Wichita Falls, Texas; David, of Baraboo, Wisconsin; Matt, of Pawhuska, Oklahoma; and Kathy of Bremerton, Washington. Surviving grandchildren are, Kirstie and Keith, of Bremerton, Washington, and Will and Bethany, of Baraboo, Wisconsin.
Funeral Services will be held Saturday at 1pm at Bartlesville First Methodist Church at Madison and Price Road, and all are welcome. Cremation arrangements were under the direction of the Stumpff Funeral Home & Crematory. Friends who wish may sign the online guest book and leave condolences at www.stumpff.org.
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