Wilma Koon Jacobsen

Wilma James Koon Jacobsen died on July 9th 2017 in Ft Myers, Florida at the age of 100. Wilma was born in Knoxville, Tennessee on May 15th 1917 to Ben West Koon and Allie Mamie Rowland-Koon. She grew up with her older sisters Grace and Lucille. When Wilma was a child her father would bring a bowl to her grandfather’s store & fill it with ice cream, Wilma loved ice cream. There was a nearby watermelon farm and she & her friends would go and eat the watermelons. Wilma’s mom passed when she was sixteen. She would sit with her father & keep him company. Eventually he remarried & soon after Wilma left home to live with her sister Grace in North Carolina. From there she was off to Arlington, Virginia to work in the United States Army Signal Corps during WWII as a cryptographer. It was here that she met her soon to be husband Cliff W. Jacobsen. They were married in 1943 and moved to Uniondale, New York. Wilma accepted a position at Doubleday & Co (a publishing company) in Garden City, New York. Wilma was a member of the Calvary Temple Church and then a member of the Vineyard Church in Rockville Center and was involved in several ministries. Wilma is predeceased by her two sisters Grace Owen and Lucille Walker. Wilma known as Mam to her family is survived by her two children Rhonda Jacobsen LaValle and William C. (Patricia) Jacobsen, five grandchildren Michelle (Joe) Levin, Mark LaValle, Heather (Ken) Barton, Aaron (Jaime) Jacobsen, and Dawn Jacobsen, and four great grandchildren Samantha and Sydney Levin, Camryn and Selah Barton. Mam spent the last five years of her life with her granddaughter Michelle Levin and her family in Ft Myers, Florida. Mam celebrated her 100th birthday surrounded by her family.