Margaret Isla Jacobs

After a joyful 91 years sharing her infectious spirit, kindness and humor with all those lucky enough to meet her, Margaret Isla Jacobs passed away quietly in her sleep July 11, 2023 in Houston, Texas.

Isla is survived by her children, Paul Robb Jacobs, Frederick Douglas Jacobs, Victoria Ann Jacobs Brady, and her stepdaughter Penelope Jacobs Marsh, as well as eight grandchildren and two great grandchildren.

Born at the peak of the Great Depression, and shaped by the challenges of World War II, Isla grew to adulthood with the resilience, thrift and good humor that helped define her generation. After earning an RN degree and midwife certification in her native Australia, Isla and a group of other nurses traveled to North America in the late 1950s, spending months touring Canada, the U.S. and Mexico. Isla would stop to work as a nurse and midwife wherever her savings happen to run out. It was on one of these stops, in the small New Mexico city of Carlsbad, that she met and later married Alex Robb Jacobs, a mining engineer employed by the Mosaic Potash Company. Soon after marrying Alex, she would begin the long process of naturalization to become a U.S. citizen and even longer process of raising a family.

Isla and Alex would remain together for nearly five decades, separating only with his death in 2010 at the age of 78. Over the course of Alex’s engineering career, the Jacobs family would live in more than a dozen cities, towns and mining camps on two continents. Isla would leave her mark in each, enthusiastically volunteering in pursuits as diverse as child literacy, bilingual education, photography and community theater.

Over her long life, Isla made many close friends across the U.S. and around the world and had a positive impact on nearly everyone she encountered. The qualities that defined her -- an irrepressible spirit, unfailing kindness, hard work, and generosity to those in need -- allowed her to make a lasting and positive impact in every community she called home. Isla was also known for a charming sense of humor that reflected her Australian heritage, particularly her rural upbringing in the farming country near her hometown of Dalby, Queensland.

“Our sadness at her passing is eased by the memory of her kindness and generosity. No matter what challenges she faced, she was rarely without a smile and never without a positive word for those around her,” said Annie Brady, Isla’s youngest child and only daughter. “Our family was in constant motion, moving from one mining town to the next, and through it all she was our one constant, always hopeful, always positive, always fun. She was a model of what few of us are, but all of us should aspire to be.”

A portion of Isla’s ashes will be returned to her native Australia and the remainder will be interred in the Jacobs family burial plot in Oak Grove Cemetery in Jerseyville, Illinois.

The Jacobs family requests that in lieu of flowers, donations be made to the Alzheimer’s Association.