Heather Clarke-Jarvis

12/07/2003

Heather Clarke-Jarvis, 55, of Undermountain Road died Sunday at Tufts-New England Medical Center in Boston after a six-week struggle with neurological Behcet's syndrome, a rare auto-immune disorder. Born in Regina, Saskatchewan, on July 24, 1948, daughter of Wallace B. and Vera Fern Clarke of Victoria, British Columbia, she received her registered nursing degree from Winnipeg Health Sciences Centre in Manitoba, where she also did postgraduate work in intensive care nursing. Mrs. Clarke-Jarvis practiced nursing for many years in Winnipeg and also in Israel, where she helped set up a postsurgical cardiac intensive care unit. She most recently did home-care nursing. She also had been a school nurse at Shawnigan Lake and Brentwood College schools, both in British Columbia; at Salisbury (Conn.) School and at Berkshire School. She and her husband, Phillip J. Jarvis, assistant head of school at Berkshire School, were married 25 years. They met in Winnipeg. Besides her parents and her husband, she leaves two daughters, Megan Jarvis of Victoria and Caitlin Jarvis of Cambridge; three sisters, Barbara Ingamellf of Vancouver, Elaine Manz of Houston and Anita Bancroft of Nanaimo, British Columbia, and a brother, Dr. Wayne Clarke of Regina. FUNERAL NOTICE -- A celebration of the life of Heather Clarke-Jarvis will be held Wednesday, Dec. 10, at 10:30 at St. James' Church in Great Barrington, followed by a reception in the church's great hall. On Dec. 20, the Clarke family of Canada and the Jarvis family of Wales will gather for a memorial service at Shawnigan Lake School on Vancouver Island, B.C. A child of the Canadian prairie who was the second oldest of five children and whose father was a farmer who taught college biology, Heather Clarke-Jarvis developed an early love for learning and people. As a home-care nurse here in the Berkshires, she became a close friend to many families and was loved greatly by them in their hour of need. She will be remembered both here and on Vancouver Island as a woman of dignity and grace and, at the last, of great courage as well. The family will be ever grateful for the care and compassion of the magnificent doctors and nurses at Tufts-New England Medical Center. In lieu of flowers, friends may make contributions to Behcet's Organization Worldwide, online via behcets.org or by mail to P.O. Box 27, Watchet, Somerset, TA23 OYJ, United Kingdom.

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