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Constable: Volunteer for 70 years, veteran still waves flag for Scouts

Celebrating his 90th birthday, George “Bob” Jarvis of Grayslake still smiles at the memory of the glorious present he received when he turned 12.

“I got a flag for my birthday. It was real nice. It was heavy and had the stars sewn on,” Jarvis says, his voice picking up speed as he describes his 48-star present in the way his peers might have described a baseball glove or a football. “I like the flag. The flag of our country is beautiful to me.”

As the father of four in Wildwood, he installed a flagpole in his front yard. He insisted his children learn how to properly raise a flag each morning, and take it down and fold it as the sun went down. His fondness for the flag is an offshoot of an even greater love.

“Apart from my mother, Scouts was the love of his life,” says Mary Ann Jarvis, 51, who recently moved her father into her home in Grayslake after the death of her mother, Mary, last October.

“Scouting has been my life, really. I was always a Scout,” says the elder Jarvis, who joined the Cub Scouts in 1936 when his parents, Ken and Ruth, were living in Connecticut. He and his sister spent plenty of summer nights sleeping outside near the raspberry patch. His father, an inventor, moved often.

“I lived in seven states and 18 houses before I was 18,” says Jarvis. When his family moved to Winnetka in 1938, Jarvis joined local Boy Scout Troop 20, and quickly became an integral part of July Fourth celebrations.

“We did a lot of fancy parading down the street,” he says. “I got to lead the whole Pledge of Allegiance in front of everybody.”

He worked his way through the Scouting ranks, piling up patches and merit badges for his achievements, including the special Whitney Award medal that reads, “Energy and Ambition Controlled by Reason.” He earned Scouting's highest rank of Eagle Scout. Of his 36 merit badges, the toughest to get was the one for Lifesaving.

“I sank. I couldn't float,” remember Jarvis. His daughters, Mary Ann and Carol Jarvis McDowl, 60, of Beach Park joined Brownies, the entry level for Girl Scouts, in grade school, and sons, Tom Jarvis, 64, of Madison, Wisconsin, and Ken Jarvis, 62, of Beach Park, joined their father, grandfather and other male relatives as Eagle Scouts.

But his most rewarding accomplishments came as an adult leader for

Scouts, which he began after enlisting in the Navy in 1944.

“I went into the service on my birthday when I was 18,” Jarvis says, explaining how he volunteered with Scout troops in Mississippi and North Carolina during his two years in the Navy and two more years with the Marines. He spent another dozen years as a Marine Reserve, and returned to help his Winnetka troop.

Married in 1952, Jarvis and his wife settled in Wildwood, where he served as an assistant Scoutmaster and Scoutmaster with troops in Grayslake and Wildwood. He also served Scouting on a regional level.

Even after being awarded the Silver Beaver, the district's top volunteer award, in 1973, Jarvis continued to serve local Scout groups.

“Congratulations on your 70 years in Scouting, happy birthday and thank you for all that you have done for young men in Illinois. We appreciate the effort that you have given and the sacrifices that you have made,” reads a recent letter from Daniel A. O'Brien, Scout Executive with the Abraham Lincoln Council in Springfield. “Soggy weekends, cold weekends, hot weekends and perfect Indian summer weekends - you experienced them all over the last seven decades, all while you could have been home, relaxing in your easy chair, but you didn't. Instead, you chose to give back to others what had been given to you on your own Trail to Eagle Scout.”

Scoutmaster Pat Klemens of Troop 96 in Grayslake, sent Jarvis a note thanking him and noting, “You made a difference. You 'survived' the hikes, camping trips, troop meetings and more so that boys could be men.”

Always prepared, Jarvis reaches into the pockets on his Scout

  Earning more merit badges than he needed in becoming an Eagle Scout, George "Bob" Jarvis, 90, of Grayslake, says he accomplished much in his 70 years as a volunteer Scout leader. Gilbert R. Boucher II/gboucher@dailyherald.com

vest and pulls out items he's carried for decades - a small U.S. flag, a rope for knot-tying and a small, weathered Book of John from the Bible,

“Too many kids didn't know anything about God. We could talk about God and country in Scouts,” Jarvis says. The only item he's had longer might be the Scout hat that he inherited from his father.

“My wife didn't like this hat. She took it and threw it into the woods, and my son found it and gave it back,” says Jarvis, who adds that he paired the hat with earmuffs during camping trips with temperatures below zero. But his wife tolerated his one-weekend-a-month camping trips with Scouts, and was a full participant in family camping vacations from coast to coast, even when Jarvis had to throw tent stakes at the bears in Yellowstone National Park. He sat at his wife's bedside during her long illness, holding her hand and reading to her from journals about their vacations overseas, where they slept in hotels.

Fighting an illness of his own now, Jarvis has been hearing from many of his old Scouts. They remember all those 20-mile hikes, campfire meals, the time he adopted two orphaned skunks and told the kids they were “whiffenpoofs,” and his legendary Vampire Story, which Jarvis swears is true and involved some real dead bodies with holes in their necks.

“Kids like scary stories,” says Jarvis, who still can recite that story by heart.

He and his wife used to organize the massive Lake County Treasure Hunt, which drew hundreds of people searching in odd places for even odder clues, including fake sharks, gorilla costumes, skeletons and coffins that eventually led the winners to a treasure chest filled with chocolate coins.

An electrical engineer who finished his degree at Northwestern University, Jarvis made time for volunteering when he wasn't working at a heavy equipment company. Even then, he'd often arrive at a campground to find a sign telling him to contact his company.

He can't begin to estimate how many nights he's slept in a tent, or how many

Joing his local Cub Scout troop as a boy and rising to the rank of Eagle Scout, George "Bob" Jarvis of Grayslake is being honored for his 70 years as a volunteer Scout leader. Courtesy of Jarvis family

boys he has mentored. “But I still have some knots I can tie really fast,” he says, mastering a clove hitch knot with one quick simultaneous move of both hands. He learned much more from Scouting.

“You learn to be trustworthy and loyal, and love the country,” Jarvis says. “It's been really nice being in Scouts, knowing all the boys. I always thought Scouts were good for kids. It was good for me.”

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