John K., Garrity, 73, of Cambridge, March 27, 2014. Survived by his beloved wife Lisa Jacobson and loving son John K. Garrity, Jr. of Honolulu. Former husband of Monique P. Garrity of Washington, D.C. Dear brother of Judith A. Cosgrove and her husband Thomas of Sagamore Beach and the late Hon. Paul G. Garrity. Son of the late Thomas J. and M. Edith (Morrison) Garrity and nephew of the late Edna Morrison, all of Jamaica Plain. Brother-in-law of Paula W. Garrity of Chelsea, Ileen Gladstone of Boston and Nancy Jacobson Katz of New York City. Cherished uncle of Maura and Thomas Garrity; Michael, Thomas and Danielle Cosgrove and Matthew and Ross Garrity.
A Funeral Service will be held in the Story Chapel at Mount Auburn Cemetery, 580 Mt. Auburn St., Cambridge, MA 02138 www.mountauburn.org on Friday, April 4, at 11:00 a.m. Relatives and friends are invited to attend.
In lieu of flowers, donations appreciated to Volunteers Lawyers Project (www.vlpnet.org) or Partners for Haitian Children (www.p-h-ch.org).
John grew up in Jamaica Plain. He graduated from Boston Latin School in 1958. At Boston College, he majored in Modern Languages, graduating Magna cum Laude in 1962. As a sophomore, he was elected president of the newly established Russian Academy, created to familiarize students with Russian culture.
In his senior year, he won a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship and went on to earn a master’s degree in Russian Literatures and Languages from the Slavic Department at Harvard University, submitting his thesis: “The imagery of Leonid Leonov's The Thief.”
Given his Irish and French-Canadian ancestry, John was out of the ordinary, being fluent in Russian, German and French, near fluent in Polish and conversant in Haitian Creole, Spanish and Italian. Just about everyone has an image of John reading a book, newspaper or magazine, and upon closer look, realize that the book was a Russian edition of Tolstoy’s “War and Peace,” the newspaper was Le Monde and the magazine was Der Spiegel.
During and after graduate school, he taught in the Slavic Studies field at Harvard University and Boston College. Based on his training and fluency, he participated in cultural exchange trips to the Soviet Union in the 1960s, before the thaw of the Cold War.
After teaching, John went to Boston College Law School, graduating in 1978. He practiced with his brother and at other practices, focusing on immigration and family law. As the Cold War thawed, he drew on his experience in law and languages to consult with Russian businesses entering the U.S. market after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, traveling again to what was now Russia.
In semi-retirement, John served as an active panel attorney with the Volunteer Lawyers Project of the Boston Bar Association, an organization that provides legal services to poor and low-income clients, taking on cases in family law, bankruptcy, housing and other matters. His participation in Senior Partners for Justice, under the auspices of the VLP, led to the Gideon’s Trumpet Award honor in 2010, presented for outstanding pro bono work.
Throughout the different phases of his life, family and friends have charming recollections of John, from his schoolboy years delivering newspapers and as an alter boy; as a high school, college and graduate student; as a husband and father and as a professional. He was intelligent and worldly, and people were easily drawn to him.
John was never pretentious. It wasn’t his nature. That’s why his son got to see Star Wars 13 times in its first theater run. He enjoyed classical music, but not to the exclusion of the 50s and 60s rock n’roll and rhythm and blues of his adolescence and young adulthood. Later, he came to appreciate the big band music of his parents’ era, and learned to swing dance.
Because John could talk to everybody about anything in five languages, he was the best traveling companion and provided the spark at gatherings everywhere. His observations and discussions about the latest news, tied to his deep historical and cultural knowledge, will always impress.