Jacobsen, Edna Lois (Moe) 1917 - 2016

JACOBSEN, MOE, FREEMAN, CLAUSEN, POSSON

Posted By: Joy Moore (email)
Date: 10/28/2016 at 13:06:59

E. Lois Jacobsen, age 99, of Decorah, IA, passed away peacefully Tuesday evening, October 25, 2016 at Barthell O.E.S. Home in Decorah, where she had resided since 2003.

Memorial Services will be held at 11:00 a.m. Monday, November 7, 2016 at First Lutheran Church in Decorah with Rev. Chad Huebner officiating.

Visitation will begin at 10:00 a.m. Monday, November 7, one hour before the service, First Lutheran Church.

Edna Lois Moe Jacobsen was born June 23, 1917 in Chicago, IL. to William Henry Moe and Dorothy Ramsten Moe, the oldest of six children.

Lois grew up a girl of the depression in Chicago; lost her mother to post-partum suicide at age 8, with a younger brother Bill and sister Shirley. She lost her step mother to infection at age 14, with two more brothers, Arthur and Laurence. Lois graduated with honors from high school in 1934.

Lois worked in Chicago for two years, received a scholarship to St. Olaf College and stayed for one year. She then worked in Chicago for 3 1/2 years before coming to Luther and graduated, magna cum laude, in June, 1943. Her brother, Bill, was lost in the south Pacific as a Navy pilot. She was hired at Luther as a substitute for Clara Paulson as Dean of Women and taught English, and served as secretary for President O.J.H. Preus and for Dr. Pip Qualley. In 1946, she married Robert S. Jacobsen in Chicago. To this marriage, four children were born: David, Karl, Theodor, and Anne. In 1947, Lois obtained her M.S. degree in English from the University of Washington. In 1949, Lois lost her brother Artie, a senior at Luther, to polio.

Lois was first treated for depression her freshman year at St. Olaf, and thus began a lifetime of coping with mental illness and pursuit of treatments and cures. She received electro shock therapy for depression twice in the 1960s and received ongoing treatment and counseling. She also spent many years caring for a husband and three sons with type one diabetes, weighing food and recovering and trying to prevent hypo-glycemic episodes. Lois graduated from hospice in 2013 after three months and losing over fifty pounds. She lived for many years needing to be fed thickened liquids but was still able to cognitively function and respond when one showed patience with her efforts. She benefited from social media and asked to have it explained to her to try to understand it.

Lois taught throughout her career of raising family, English as a Second language, substitute in Decorah School system, supported foreign students in her home and in the community, was active in the library of First Lutheran Church; received three Governor’s awards: one for teaching ESL, one for helping found the National Alliance of Mentally ILL in Iowa, and one for conservation for the solar heated house they built with Reg Laursen and Bruce Willis at 403 Ohio St. Lois served on the Care Review committee at Oneota Riverview Care Center where her oldest son David lived off and on for 37 years and she also served on the auxiliary board. She is a past president of A.L.C.W. and West Side Study Club which her mother-in-law, was the founding President of, in 1932.

She taught residents and loving staff and visitors at Eastern Star a lot about life, living, and dying with dignity and she taught everyone who knew her the miracles of living in faith with Grace as she suffered three bleedings on her brain in her eighties and still could communicate despite physical dysfunctions to the very end. Lois passed, while sleeping, with the Cubs World Series game on, with no pain.

Lois is survived by two sons, Karl (Jerrine) Jacobsen of Decorah, and Ted Jacobsen of McKinney, TX, and his children, Emily (Shamus) Freeman and Eric Jacobsen of North Liberty, IA; her daughter, Anne (Lars) Clausen of Chelan, WA, and her children Kari Anna and Kai Clausen; one great-grandson Jackson Freeman; and by two brothers: A. Laurance (Lucille) Moe of Colorado Springs, CO and Paul R. (Judy) Moe of Prospect Heights, IL.

She was preceded in death by her parents; her husband Robert on October 23, 1992; one son, David William Jacobsen on October 31, 2015; one sister, Shirley Anne Posson; and two brothers, William Henry Moe Jr. and Arthur Whiting Moe.

Soli deo Gloria..

Source: Fjelstul Funeral Home database

Lutheran Decorah Cemetery
 

Winneshiek Obituaries maintained by Bruce Kuennen.
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