Obituaries : * Father Vincent J. McGarvey; Associate Pastor

Father Vincent J. McGarvey, associate pastor of St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Church in Ojai, died of a cerebral hemorrhage Wednesday in San Diego. He was 76.

McGarvey began to prepare for the priesthood when he was still in high school in Philadelphia. He joined the Augustinian Order in 1930 and was ordained a priest in 1942. McGarvey served in various parishes for the next 20 years. In 1962, he was appointed to head the Augustinian Order in the Western United States, where he served for six years. During his tenure, the order opened its first West Coast seminary in Camarillo.

Over the next 25 years, McGarvey served as pastor at churches in San Diego, Castro Valley and Oregon. In June, 1992, he arrived in Ojai to serve as associate pastor. Pastor Patrick Keane said McGarvey was in semi-retirement. Parishioners remembered him for his children’s Masses, where he asked them to sit with him at the altar while he read from the Bible.

“He was a very gentle, kind man,” said Keane, who also remembered McGarvey as an avid sports fan. “He always supported the Philadelphia teams, of course.”

McGarvey is survived by three brothers, Thomas, John and Leo.

A vigil service will be held at 7:30 p.m. Sunday at St. Patrick’s Church in San Diego. McGarvey will be buried at 10 a.m. Monday at the Augustinian plot at Holy Cross Cemetery, San Diego.