Mrs. Etta Mae Jarvis, 92, went to rest on Monday, March 21, at the Samaritan Medical Center, Watertown, where she had been a patient for a short time.
She was born in Norfolk on Jan. 13, 1919, the eldest of ten children of Merle and Jennie Griffin Jesmer. Her childhood was spent at Jarvis Settlement near Newton Falls. She attended Newton Falls Union School walking over a mile each way from school to home with her siblings when the road was passable.
She went to work at age fourteen as a domestic in the Gouverneur area.
She worked at the Newton Falls Paper Mill for a short time, but she found her niche as a waitress and short-order cook. Mrs. Jarvis enjoyed waitressing and was employed at several area restaurants over the years including the Newton Falls Hotel, Dumas' at Childwold, Cranberry Lake, McCarthy's Canton, the old Canton Bakery, and Elmer's Diner in West Carthage among others.
She traveled to Florida and California but always returned to her beloved Adirondacks where she enjoyed going fishing and hunting whenever she found the time.
A marriage to John Fawcett in 1939 ended in divorce as did her marriage to Raymond Jarvis in the sixties. Mrs. Jarvis had no children of her own but had many nieces and nephews who enjoyed the attention she showered on them.
She is survived by brothers, Chester, Edward, Bernard, and John. She was predeceased by her brother, Roy; and her sisters, Margaret Senter, Francis LaPlante, Nancy Law, and Inez (in infancy).
Mrs. Jarvis requested that no service be held upon her death and that any memorial gestures be directed toward helping the less advantaged through the food banks or other means.
Local arrangements are being handled by the Bossuot-Lundy Funeral Home, Inc., 500 State St., Carthage.
