The Big Board

In Dad's Footsteps

When legendary New York Senator Jacob Javits ran for his fifth term at age 76, he shared the upsetting news that he had ALS. The disclosure likely cost him the election, but Javits ran as vigorous a campaign as ever.

The Javitses: father and son in the late 1970s.

By then—1981— he’d served as a trial lawyer, army officer, attorney general of the state of New York, member of the House of Representatives and U.S. senator. He also wrote and lectured about people with disabilities, sharing his own experiences.

Javits died in 1986, but not before lobbying passionately for ALS. His son, Josh, 54—a Packard Center board member and dispute resolution lawyer in Washington, D.C.—can’t forget his father’s grit after he was diagnosed: “I was a soldier in World War II and I’m going to be a soldier in this fight too. I’m too busy to despair.”

Since then, the younger Javits has picked up the ALS torch. On the board of the ALS Association since 1986, he joined the Packard Center board in 2002.

Like his father, he is both self-effacing and kind. And his love for his father still shines through in word and deed. Last spring, on what would have been his father’s 100th birthday, he and the family reunited 120 former Senate staffers to reminisce and raise money for the Packard Center. Privately, Jacob Javits’ wife, Marian, his primary caregiver after the diagnosis, joined the family and 15 close friends to pay him tribute.

Today, a decade after his father died, Josh Javits offers this advice to families with ALS: “Open your hearts. Be there for the person. If you’re thinking of getting married, do it! I’ll long remember the joy on my father’s face at my wedding the year before he died.”

The Jacob K. Javits Fund for ALS Research at the Packard Center honors Senator Javits’ legacy, while helping scientists find a cure. To contribute, contact Allison Mayberry at 410-516-6248.