Olga F. Jacobs

Olga Frontanez was born on March 17, 1947 in Ponce, Puerto Rico. Her parents, Antonio Frontanez and Petra Jusino, had four children, the youngest of whom died in infancy; Olga was their second. She attended school and became a school teacher, working briefly in New York before returning to Puerto Rico to teach Spanish to Peace Corps volunteers. One of Olga’s students was John Jacobs, bound for Ecuador. Between them, a romance was kindled that would last for the next two decades. They were married on December 23, 1972.

In Ecuador, Olga bore a daughter, Iris, who required extensive medical attention. The family returned to John’s hometown of Dallas, Texas and began building a home in the peaceful Old East Dallas neighborhood. Iris received needed treatment and thrived, welcoming a baby brother, Tony, when she was three years old. Olga raised her children with love, and poured her creative talents into various hobbies and activities: She baked and decorated cakes for birthdays and other occasions that were elaborate, delicious, and sometimes hilarious; she painted drab yard sculptures in bright cheery colors; she put on colorful hair and clown makeup to entertain at children’s parties. And Olga danced!

Olga often related that she had learned to dance before she learned to walk, feeling the rhythms of the Merengue, the Guaracha, and other Caribbean dances as she sat on her mother’s knee. Olga danced every day. She danced in the kitchen, while cooking or cleaning. She danced in colorful fantastically designed homemade skirts. She danced for school assemblies and for entertainment in retirement homes, presenting musical and educational programs of her own design. She danced in the streets at local block parties. She danced as she grew older, and glowingly reported that her Arthritis didn’t hurt while she was dancing. Olga danced with joy that radiated from her, and whenever people saw her dance, they smiled.

After nearly 20 years of marriage, John suffered a severe psychological decline. His marriage with Olga ended in divorce, and he subsequently died by suicide, a tragic result of lifelong untreated disorders. Despite the legal separation, Olga remained John’s close friend until the end, and always considered herself his widow, describing him as the love of her life.

Olga lived in the old neighborhood, seeing her son finish high school and move away for college, like his sister before him. She worked as a patient assistant and interpreter at a medical imaging center, and she enjoyed life, traveling, gardening, and still dancing! A year and a half following John’s death, when Petra Jusino Frontanez died, having survived Antonio Frontanez by ten years, Olga welcomed her older sister, “Mima” into her home, and they were inseparable for the following two decades. Olga and Mima moved to a quiet neighborhood in North Arlington, near the airport, where they watched airplanes fly over their manicured back yard, while dancing together to Salsa music, among the roses, lilies and wild petunias.

In these years Olga returned to her original profession: teaching children. She worked at schools in Dallas and Farmers Branch as a teaching assistant, and, offering free English tutoring to students who needed help. Olga continued to spread joy, with her dance programs and her loving attention to her students. Of her deeply held values, the one she mentioned most was the importance of seeing the good in every person, and by her example she imparted this value to those she interacted with, especially the children: her own son and daughter, her nieces and nephews, any children her son or daughter brought home to visit, neighbors for whom she would babysit or nanny, and all of her students.

Olga was also a student herself while living in Arlington, taking lessons in ballroom and tap dancing, and performing in showcases. She and her sister lit up the mid-cities senior center dance circuit as long as they were able. Olga also studied foreign languages, swapping lessons with the parents of some of her students. She taught them English or Spanish, and they would help her learn Portuguese, French, or Italian. Olga loved learning to speak other languages almost as much as she loved to dance.

In 2011, Olga was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s disease. For five years she was cared for at home, living first in Arlington with Iris, then in Denton with Tony. Finally, Olga moved to a nursing home, close to the homes of both her children in Denton, where she spent the remainder of her days. There she met her granddaughter Cora, who bounced on her knee to those same island rhythms that Olga could never forget. Olga continued dancing after she could no longer walk, and taking her final bow in the early morning of November 3, 2020.

Olga was preceded in death by her parents, Antonio Frontanez and Petra Jusino, her baby brother Gorge Frontanez, and her husband of nineteen years, John Jacobs. Olga is survived by her two children, Iris Baldwin and George Jacobs, her sister and brother, Minerva Frontanez and Roberto Frontanez, her son-in-law, her daughter-in-law, her sister-in-law, as well as two granddaughters, five nieces, two nephews, and many cousins.

On November 17, 2020 Olga was laid to rest alongside John at Calvary Hill Cemetery in Dallas. Olga’s children will welcome family and friends to share their memories of her here on the Calvary Hill Funeral Home memorial website. In lieu of flowers, Olga’s family requests that donations be made in Olga’s name to the Alzheimer’s Association.