MARY JANE (BEEBE) JACOBS

The Tales of a Blair Family    

OBITUARY (newspaper unknown):
Mary Jane Beebe was born Feb. 18, 1844, near Adeline, Ogle County, Illinois, and died Sept. 15, 1930, at her home in Spokane, Wash., reaching the age of 86 years and 7 months.   She was the oldest daughter of Nathaniel W. Beebe of Utica, New York, and Jane C. (Blair) Beebe of Meadville, Pa., who came as settlers in the early pioneer days of Illinois and made their first home near Adeline.

After her student days at Mt. Morris Seminary she became a teacher, and was one of the first teachers in the public school at Forreston, (Illinois) finally serving as assistant principal for several years.  In 1868 she was married to Henry C. Jacobs, son of Dr. Samuel J. Jacobs of Adeline, the young couple going to Chicago to make their home.  To this union were born six children, one dying in infancy.

She is survived by one daughter, Mrs. Flora J. Arnold of Spokane, Wash., and four sons: Charles A. of Seattle, Wash., Clarence J. of Monrovia, Calif., Mark R. of Montebello, Calif., and Amos E. of Spokane.  Also six grandchildren and three great-grandchildren one sister, Mrs. T. E. Hills of Portland, Oregon, and a brother, N. W. Beebe of Hampton, Iowa.  Her husband passed on four years ago.

The funeral service was held at the mortician's chapel Friday, Sept. 19.  Dr. Charles Pease of the Unitarian church officiated.

Mrs. Jacob's first active interest always lay in her family--then in the welfare of other children, her sympathy going out to the under-privileged and homeless.  She has been "Aunt Mary" and "Grandma" to many of all ages and conditions, and has taken joy in giving herself in this kind of service.

The intimate friends of Mrs. Jacobs recognized that she was of an essentially religious nature.  She had a deep and abiding faith in the power that brought her into being--that this same power would give her safe conduct on into the future.  Aside from the inspiration she received from the Book of Books she took a deep interest in the philosophy of Emerson and for many years was an almost daily reader of his writings.  She believed religion to be a way of life, a search for and the practice of the good life, a force evolutionary in character affecting the life of man in his relations to his fellow man.  She believed with the Apostle Paul: "Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man the things which God hath prepared for those that love him."  It was her request that the minister read at her services Micah, Chapter 6, verse 8:  "What doth the Lord require of thee but to do justly, and to live mercy and to walk humbly with thy God."

 

mailto:blair@kinsleuth.com

© 1998-2007