John Peter Javsicas–6/13/2017

Activist and community organizer John Peter Javsicas, 76, of Mt. Airy, died June 13^th at Hahnemann Hospital after being struck by an out-of-control van that jumped a curb in Center City Philadelphia. Peter was born in Queens, New York, to anarchist author Gabriel Javsicas and Erma (Rockhill) Javsicas. He graduated from Friends Academy in Locust Valley, New York, and attended Columbia University and the London School of Economics. He was a high school wrestler and excelled as a distance runner in both high school and college. After leaving college he began a career in the New York film industry, where he became a union film editor despite refusing on principle to take a loyalty oath the union required. Peter would go on to change careers several times throughout his life, each transition guided by conscience and social activist ideals.

In 1970 he met his future wife, Anne, on a train as they returned to New York from a Washington, D.C. peace march organized in response to the Kent State shootings. They married a year later. In 1972, Peter, Anne, and two other couples founded an intentional community on a farm near Unityville, Pennsylvania. After the community dissolved they continued to live on the farm with their children, Aaron and Laura, raising goats, pigs, rabbits, geese, chickens, honeybees, a horse, and a vicious rooster named Mr. Kelly, until 1981 when they moved to Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania.

He established his own film and audio visual production company, Looking Glass Films, and won several national awards for his work. In the late 1970s Peter was part of a group that founded Greenwood Friends School in Millville, Pennsylvania, which Anne would eventually direct as head of school. During this period Peter, Anne, and their children joined the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) as members of Millville Monthly Meeting. Peter eventually transitioned to a new career in public relations and development for nonprofit institutions. In 1989 Anne became head of Plymouth Meeting Friends School, Peter accepted a job as development director for Delaware Valley Friends School, and the family moved to the Philadelphia suburbs.

Over the years Peter developed a conviction that many social and environmental ills were fundamentally related to the decline of mass transit and the rise of automobile dependency. He came to devote all of his professional time to this issue. He founded Pennsylvanians for Transportation Solutions (PenTrans), a group devoted to multimodal transit for the state of Pennsylvania, with a focus on increased public transportation funding. This group continues to operate. Later, he would go on to help found Northwest Village Network (NVN), an aging in place community for residents of Northwest Philadelphia, which also continues to function through the leadership of his wife, Anne, and others.

Other interests included, at various times, dancing (Peter had been one of the founders of a creative dance group in Northeastern Pennsylvania), theater (as a young man he participated in Summer stock theater, studied acting at the HB Studio in New York, and operated a theater loft with friends near Kennedy Airport; later, he would appear in a number of community theater performances), film (he was a cofounder of Bloomsburg’s Classy Film Society in the early 1980s), food co-ops (Peter was a founder of The Real Food Co-op in Northeast Pennsylvania and would later be an active member of Weaver’s Way in Philadelphia), cooking (an interest he inherited from his father; he was always in search of the perfect cast iron pan), Green Party Politics, and, more recently, Rotary International. He loved organic gardening, good wine and beer, dark chocolate, rosette de lyon sausage, films, opera, classical music, jazz, American history, science fiction, and the novels of Patrick O’Brien. He regretted never learning to tap dance.

Peter had a difficult childhood and struggled with depression throughout his life. Perhaps as a result of his early experiences, he focused on building and maintaining a strong family and community. Peter was humble, charitable, and moral. He wanted to give away whatever money he had. He had a slate of oft-repeated jokes, silly and usually self-deprecating, but his humor was sometimes so subtle people couldn’t tell when he was joking: he’d ask waiters whether could have the biggest piece or if he had to sign the credit card slip with his real name. He was a powerful combination of humble and charismatic: He could never turn down an opportunity to speak to a crowd of 500, or a one-on-one conversation at 2 am. When you spoke to him he listened.

Peter is survived by his wife and children; by his daughter-in-law, Lucinda Bartley, and son-in-law, David Ross Javsicas; by four grandsons, John David (named for his grandfathers), Daniel, Evan, and Oliver; by his sister, Michele Childers, and by his nephews Peter and Dan Childers. He was preceded in death by his parents and by his brother-in-law, Rory Childers. Peter is deeply missed by his family and many hundreds of others whose lives he touched.

Donations in his memory may be made to The ACLU of PA, P.O. Box 60173. Phila.Pa.19102.  To donate on line go to www.aclupa.org/donate.  Or you can donate to Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia, 1500 Walnut Street, Suite 1107, Philadelphia, PA 19102 (www.bicyclecoaliton.org).

.