Anne Elizabeth Javsicas, 79, longtime head of Plymouth Meeting Friends School, died October 11th, 2025, at the Foulkeways at Gwynedd retirement community in Gwynedd, Pennsylvania.
Anne grew up in Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania, with her parents, sister, brothers, and an abundance of neighborhood friends and pets. A 1964 graduate of Bloomsburg High School, she was a drum majorette, honors student, and Homecoming Queen.
In college at the University of Pittsburgh, Anne majored in psychology and anthropology. She started preparing for a Peace Corps mission to Senegal, but when she learned her job would be to promote infant formula over breastfeeding, she quit. Instead, she became a VISTA volunteer in Lower Grassy-Trace Branch, Kentucky, where she worked on public health projects.
Eventually, she moved to New York City, became a social worker, and was employed at the New York Association for the Blind (also known as The Lighthouse) serving blind children and adults. Anne enrolled in Bank Street College where she received a master’s degree in education.
She met her future husband, Peter Javsicas, on a train returning to New York from a peace march in Washington, DC. She and Peter moved to a farm that they bought with friends in rural northeastern Pennsylvania, not far from Bloomsburg, with a plan to start an intentional community. They were married at the farm in 1971. When the intentional community faded away, Anne and Peter ended up as the only owners of the farm. Their children, Aaron and Laura, were born during this time.
In 1976, Anne, Peter, and friends founded a Quaker school, Greenwood Friends School, in Millville, Pennsylvania. They all shared Quaker values, and Anne and Peter would become members of Millville Friends Meeting. Eventually, Anne and family left the farm and moved to Bloomsburg. She became head of Greenwood Friends School and remained there for several years.
In 1989 she accepted a job as Head of School at Plymouth Meeting Friends School (PMFS) near Philadelphia, so she moved with her family to the Philadelphia suburbs. Anne remained Head at PMFS for 22 years. She loved everything about the school: the reading program, the way children did chores, the student-run recycling program, the Mexican exchange program, and the interactions between older and younger kids at lunchtime, recess, and reading time.
Soon after moving to the Philadelphia area, Anne and family became members of Germantown Friends Meeting.
In 2007, Anne and Peter moved to Mount Airy, Philadelphia. While there, they joined with friends and neighbors to found the Northwest Village Network, a community organization serving seniors in Northwest Philadelphia.
Anne was deeply traumatized when Peter was killed by an out of control driver in Center City Philadelphia on June 13, 2017.
In the Fall of 2020, she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease and moved into assisted living at Foulkeways.
Anne treated almost every relationship, task, problem, job, idea, story, joke, pet, meeting, phone call, knitting pattern, Lifwynn trip, book, and recipe in her life with unmatchable positivity and enthusiasm. She loved her family, and her family loves her.
Anne is survived by her son, Aaron Javsicas; daughter, Laura Javsicas; daughter-in-law, Lucinda Bartley; son-in-law, David Ross Javsicas; by her four grandsons, John David, Daniel, Evan, and Oliver; and by her sister Jeanie and her brother Ross. She was preceded in death by her parents, Ralph and Vera Baker; her brother Ralph; and by her husband, Peter.
A memorial Meeting for Worship will be held at 2 pm on Saturday, November 8th, 2025 at Germantown Friends Meeting. Contributions in Anne’s memory may be made to the PMFS Anne Javsicas Community Scholar Fund or to the ACLU.
