Wood County History
By LOU MALLORY - Chairperson, Wood County Historical Commission
Ida Van Zandt Jarvis, pioneer and civic leader, was born in 1844 in Washington D.C. She was the youngest of the five children of Frances Cooke (Lipscomb) and Isaac Van Zandt, minister to the United States from the Republic of Texas.
She was educated at Franklin College in Nashville, Tennessee, and graduated from the Masonic Female Institute in Marshall, Texas. In 1866 she married James J. Jarvis, a Quitman attorney and newspaper publisher.
The couple moved in 1872 to Fort Worth, which was not yet incorporated or accessible by rail. Their affairs prospered as the city grew. A district attorney, rancher, judge, and state senator, James Jarvis was also a philanthropist whose bequests owed much to his wife's inspiration.
Together, the couple founded an institute for educating African Americans in Wood County that became Jarvis Christian College. They were also benefactors of Add-Ran Christian University and its successor, Texas Christian University.
Ida Jarvis gave the proceeds of her book, Texas Poems (1893), to finance the education of young ministers at Add-Ran and contributed $60,000 to the endowment fund at TCU.
As the wife of the president of the Add-Ran board of trustees, Mrs. Jarvis assisted in planning student activities and advised on disciplinary problems. She was the first woman trustee of TCU and served for 20 years on the advisory board.
She provided the funds to establish the school of domestic science at TCU, and Jarvis Hall, a women's dormitory, one of the first buildings on the Fort Worth campus, was named in honor of her and her husband. She was also a member of the executive committee of the Texas Students' Aid Association.
She was equally committed to civic work and social reform, an interest that crystallized after she heard Frances Willard give a speech in Fort Worth urging women never to neglect any opportunity for service. She joined the Women's Christian Temperance Union in the late 1880s. She served for 30 years, working for more humane conditions for female prisoners in the city jail. Additionally, at various times, she headed WCTU local departments on "unfermented wines," and scientific temperance instruction.
She also helped organize the Fort Worth YWCA in 1906 and served for 12 years as secretary of the Women's Rescue League.
She was president of the Associated Charities of Forth Worth and of the city's Federation of Women's Clubs, and also was a charter member of Baby Hospital.
Mrs. Jarvis was a member of the First Christian Church and worked actively for its foreign missions. She became a life member of the Christian Women's Board of Missions after a trip to Chicago in 1893 to learn about the organization firsthand. With the help of two missionaries from India, she established a Texas branch of the board and served as president for five years.
Mrs. Jarvis also presided over the Fort Worth Missionary Federation. She was a member of the Texas Women's Press Association and edited the missionary page of the Christian Courier, as well as writing on reform issues for local papers.
Mrs. Jarvis died on March 11th, 1937, and was buried in East Oakwood Cemetery, Fort Worth.
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