Richard F. Jarmain, Dentistry Professor

Richard F. Jarmain, who had a private dental practice for 30 years and taught at the Columbia University College of Dental Medicine and Stony Brook University, died at home in Montauk of heart failure last Thursday. He was 78.

Dr. Jarmain attended the Columbia dental college as well as the University of Chicago, where he studied dental surgery. He had a winter residence in New Hyde Park and taught an innovative dental inlay procedure at Stony Brook University.

That he would become a dentist was far from expected when he was a child. He was born in Queens on Feb. 29, 1940, to Franklin R. Jarmain, who built Montauk’s Wave Crest motel, and the former Lucille Yacobellis, a piano teacher who taught her son to play and soon realized she had a musical prodigy on her hands. At the age of 5, he performed 20 classical pieces at Carnegie Hall. Throughout his childhood in South Ozone Park and into his adolescent years as a student at St. John’s High School, Dr. Jarmain envisioned a professional career as a pianist. 

According to his brother, Robert Jarmain, at one point their mother was worried about him. He recalled her saying, “You’ll never make a living as a concert pianist,” which prompted him to consider becoming a priest. When she was against his taking  that path, he decided to become a dentist, his brother said.

Dr. Jarmain received a Bachelor of Science degree from Niagara University before enrolling in dental school at Columbia. He married Freya Rosen in March of 1968, and the couple had two sons, whom Dr. Jarmain raised on his own after the marriage ended in the early 1970s. 

After retiring, he focused on writing, publishing four novels and a collection of poems. He was also an adept cook and an accomplished sailor. “The sea was always calling him,” his brother, who lives in Lake Success, said.

Dr. Jarmain also is survived by a sister, Therese Jarmain of Montauk, his sons, Brian Jarmain of Darien, Conn., an attorney, and Sean Jarmain, a doctor, of Mt. Laurel, N.J., and by seven grandchildren. 

The family received visitors at the Fairchild Sons funeral chapel in Manhasset on Monday. A Mass of Christian burial, celebrated by the Rev. William T. Slater, took place yesterday at Notre Dame Catholic Church in New Hyde Park, followed by burial at the Maple Grove Cemetery in Kew Gardens.

 A memorial service is to be held in Montauk at a later date. Memorial contributions have been suggested to the American Diabetes Association, which is in Arlington, Va.