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."
