After 41 Years of Service, COVID-19 Takes Station Agent Rhonda Garvin

Rhonda Garvin, one of our longest serving Station Agents, has passed from the coronavirus after 41 years on the job. She was 63. Her father, William Franklin Garvin, had 30 years with Transit, working first as a Token Clerk and later as a Motorman. Rhonda’s son, also named William, a cable engineer at Optimum, remembers how she provided for her family, first working on the 3 line and then the L. Her transit earnings allowed the family to purchase their home in Canarsie.

William met his future wife, Karen, outside his mother's token booth in 2000. “I would always wait for my Mom to get off work, because it was a rough neighborhood and I didn’t want her to get robbed,” he said. “I was waiting and a woman stepped off the train. I just introduced myself. From that quick little ten minute talk, we just hit it off.” They have been married now for 20 years, and have three boys, 13, 8, and 4.

William son said his mother reported feeling unwell about ten days before she passed on April 15. The ME ruled her death as due to COVID-19.

In addition to being a Station Agent, Rhonda Garvin was an avid  bowler, teaming up with Bus Operator Vincent Wright to score wins in televised championship tournaments, her son said. “We always worked together,” William said about his Mom. “She was always there motivating me, telling me it’s good to work at one company. That’s why I’ve been a cable engineer for so long and why she worked at the MTA for so long.”