Ruth Ann Jacobs

Ruth Ann Jacobs was born on Long Island, New York in 1934. In 1953 she met and married, after a 6 week courtship, a tall handsome Air Force man from Detroit. She and Frederick Jacobs started their life travels by leaving on a troop ship for post-war Europe, where Dick was stationed for 3 years. Stateside again, she was a capable and self reliant Air Force Wife, instilling and nurturing a foundation of family that continues to sustain her 4 adult children and 9 grandchildren. Frequent moves, watching her husband depart for a tour in Vietnam, and other stretches of solo parenting while Dick served his country for 25 years were no match for her will. She lived her Methodist faith, played her piano, and reared her children. When Colonel Jacobs left the Air Force, the family moved to California, where Ruth Ann took college courses and learned to be a Veterinary Assistant. When their second retirement came in 1992, she and Dick moved to Raleigh and settled into a house big enough for her many Golden Retrievers and for the grandchildren who turned her driveway into a racetrack, searched her yard for eggs on Easter, and built puzzles for her puzzle museum. Surgeries, including cardiac bypass and breast cancer, were bumps in the road but did not slow her for long. She volunteered at WakeMed Hospital, made quilts, continued her lifelong romance with the piano, and remained active in the church into her 70s. The adversary she could not overcome was dementia, complications of which took her from her family and friends on September 26, 2 weeks after her 61st wedding anniversary. The hole that she leaves will not be filled. Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata will always After a small family funeral, an open house will be held at the home of her son William Jacobs on Tuesday Sept 30 starting at 4pm.