Victoria Jakab

The funeral service will be held at the St Mary Romanian Orthodox Church in Portland Oregon on Thu. March 12 2026 at 09:30 am.

Victoria was born in Romania in March 24 1926 in a picturesque village called Lunca Bradului (Fir Meadow) in the Carpathian Mountains of Transylvania/Romania to Petru and Ioana Buta.

Youngest among a 10 children family, 2 of them died during WWII (Stefan on the Russian front and Nastasia with her daughter Marioara in an allied B17 air raid). Her mother died when she was only 12yrs old, Victoria missing her mother from a young age. During WWII she and her family endured difficult times being displaced from their home in an attempt to find refuge away from the war front.

She kept a lot of those experiences to herself but occasionally as part of her old memories resurfacing in the last few year (2025) and some pieces of information from her experiences during WWII with one specific event she witnessed 17 people been shot which matches the documented Sep. ’44 Luduș in Romania event where the military shot 17 civilians as the front was moving to the west through the village.

These events made her stronger, more resilient, gaining the wisdom to succeed, resourceful in order to thrive in life despite hardships. She had a strong ethical and moral compass.

In 1949 she married Carol Jakab who survived the holocaust and Dachau concentration camps to find out that all his family was lost in the camps. Together they decided to start a new chapter in their life and create a new family. They where blessed with two children Aurora and Daniel.

As part of her legacy teaching us about her family history, her father (Petru) asked Victoria and Carol’s permission in 1953 to let him move into their home when he was terminally ill which they agreed, thus in her tradition and vision it was very important that the parents will be within family environment during the last stages of their life. This later on became also Victoria’s whish when she felt her life is getting near the end.

She had to deal in the same time with several challenges: her father’s death, pregnancy of her first child and support her family financially while her husband was attending Engineering studies.

She had a good professionally satisfying job as an accountant at a Craftsman Co-op firm in Tirgu-Mures Romania with her office just across the street of her son’s school being highly appreciated by the office clients. She made sure her son gets good nutrition at the school cantina and would come at times to see him during lunch breaks.

In 1974 at age of 48 Victoria moved with family from Romania to Israel where she had to deal with new challenges adjusting to new environment and was able to learn a new language (Hebrew) despite her age. Her strong will to support the family drove her to find creative solutions and she worked day and night making crochet wile searching for a job in her field.

Victoria cared dearly to her children and made all possible to protect them from similar to what her family experienced in WWII. She sacrificed herself living a modest life with little expenses on her in order to provide her children the opportunities to succeed in life.

Victoria retired at a late age of 72, she worked hard to build a minimum financial pension source and standard of living in order not to be a burden on her children.

Her long term vision while she lived in Israel was to return to Romania and to be surrounded by her family in the hope that the family will reunite.

In 1999 Victoria was able to move back from Jerusalem/Israel to Tirgu-Mures in Romania with Carol, while her two children lived overseas. She enjoyed the return to her native country, beautifying her new home, helping her husband recover from a medical condition.

In 2010, as she and Carol were aging, Victoria moved with her husband to UK to live with her daughter’s family in London but Carol’s health took a turn and passed away in 2016. In 2021 Victoria experienced a medical event and been placed in a Nursing home after the treatment. Having her past WWII experiences, and the excessive restrictive environment in UK/nursing homes, she insisted to be let free and moved back in a family environment based on her family history/heritage for her end of life stage. Despite her advanced stages of her medical condition, while waiting for the extremely complex process to allow her to exit UK and immigrate to US, as a testament to her strong will, Victoria survived COVID outbreak at the nursing home and after many challenges facing a “mission impossible”, on Jan. 2023 her son was able to bring Victoria from London/UK to his home in US with an air ambulance.

Shortly after arriving in US at her son’s home, Victoria started to thrive in the new less restrictive and relaxed loving family home environment expressing her gratitude to be along side her son enjoying 3 miraculous years with her son and daughter in law by her side 24x7 despite the medical experts that gave her only “few hrs., few weeks or few months” to live.

Victoria lead her life by example, a teaching moment to current and future generations, independent and resourceful person all her life supporting family in multiple ways, selfless and very modest sacrificing herself for the wellbeing of the family, asking for little in return.

She leaves behind a daughter, son and granddaughter.

We will remember her deep love and wisdom.