Ann

Ann Elaine (Greenwald) Jacobs, born February 7, 1941, to Lillian and Bernard Greenwald, spent her early childhood in the Bronx with her parents and aunt. She has good memories of her life in an apartment exploring the playgrounds and roof. She especially recalled her aunt's teeth in the retainer in their shared bedroom.

Her brother, nine years her senior, did not accompany her to Great Neck where her father and mother build their red brick home. Mother was a school teacher and father ran a fabric factory with some success. Parents were in Ethical Culture and did not want her to have a religious education. She excelled in school, being an SAT scholar and became a very interesting and attractive adolescent. She took a steamer to Europe with some friends for a summer holiday and had an adventure in Biarritz with older more lecherous men who could not get their way.

She went to college at Clark University in Worcester Massachusetts at the ripe age of seventeen. There at a freshman icebreaker she met Leonard Jacobs, who impressed her with his narcissism--checking out the fresh meat was her impression. Nevertheless, he grew on her so that they became very tight friends and lovers shortly.

Her studies in language, especially French, led her to spend one year abroad where she studied at the Sorbonne. Leonard, meanwhile, discovered that he greatly missed her so that his parents took pity on him and he visited her during his winter college break. They had great fun in Paris, Zurich, Florence, Munich, Berlin, and Venice traveling by train.

Leonard graduated and started medical school at Albert Einstein College of Medicine. He proposed marriage in December, she accepted, and they married in the rabbi's chamber. He lassoed a minion with Ann's brother, but we never told the rabbi that he never was bar mitzvah. I don't know how many camels were exchanged. She moved in with Leonard, transferring from Clark to Barnard.

After graduating from Barnard, Ann then worked for Equitable Life Insurance Company in New York City while Leonard obsessively studied and discovered that psychiatry was his interest. So Ann discovered that she was a beginner cook and a subject of Leonard's interest as he learned to stick needle in peoples veins. Somehow she weathered these issues and they both grew.

Ann and Leonard went off to Africa where Leonard worked in a hospital. Ann helped the hospital to organize a library and she sewed some dolls that Leonard used for his junior anthropological visits to the local towns. They toured Nigeria to Kano and enjoyed very interesting, rich experiences. Ann's mother joined them so they traveled to South Africa, Southern Rhodesia (now Brazil), and Zambia, both visiting game reserves and participating in the creation of a new country. Then they were onto Ethiopia with plane and bus routes through Abbysinia to Asmara.

After Africa, they went back in the Bronx and for a short time in the Great Neck house Leonard prepared for his internship to Seattle. The couple traveled by car to stop in Syracuse where Ann was admitted to a hospital because of periodic fevers due to malaria.

She was cured and the couple journeyed to Seattle while Leonard flew from the eastern border of Montana for interviews for his residency and returned at the western border while Ann drove the car with the U haul through the roads which were not in the greatest repair.

In Seattle, they lived in the intern room which was cramped. She got a job with Boeing as a computer programmer, a skill she mastered in New York. Leonard had a few weeks so he took air plane flying lessons. Then he started his residency and was so tired and drawn out from his working many days with much interrupted sleep that Ann got fed up and depressed. Somehow they stayed together. David was conceived during one of their rare occasions of coupling.

In late May 1966 she flew to be with Leonard's parents to give birth in June to David. Leonard came a few weeks later and they set off to Boston for his residency. They lived in Watertown, a life filled with having David and then their second, Joshua, and making some good friends that have stood the test of time. Then Leonard had a two year research fellowship at NIMH in Bethesda, Maryland, so they found a place in Rockville for more townhouse living with a new set of friends.

Then Ann and Leonard made a big decision to move to Hawaii for a new job for Leonard. Ann again as usual arranged a wonderful home in Aikahi Park which we renovated to make room for Sarah. By then Leonard's parents were living at the Ilikai helping out with child care and teaching their children how to have fun and be loving grandchildren.

She went back to Kapiolani Hospital to have a tubal ligation but was told that she needed to have her husband's signature on a form for them to do this procedure. She went to the ACLU which took the case resulting in the state declaring this requirement to be unconstitutional.

Ann then went to University of Hawaii for a library masters degree and had a number of jobs. She was always very active with volunteer activities both as a PTA chair and with the N.O.W organization in Hawaii. She worked as a volunteer on the Jean King campaign in 1982 and was a staff member for Senator Mary George, a great Republican state senator who welcomed Ann even though she was a Democrat. She worked at the East West Center and then the Foodbank.

She finally started as a civil service trainee for the Department of the Defense in Hawaii in 1982. Through the years she progressed through the ranks impressing the various staff with her management skills, sharp intelligence, and great diplomatic skills. She was offered other positions and was encouraged at the end of her career to become a SCS classified employee but she decided to retire in 2003.

When she worked at Camp Smith she noted that there was a Christian cross on federal property so she joined with others to have the cross removed, which was granted.

Her job with the Navy and Pacific Intelligence group involved developing the budget for the J2 and others five years in the future. With the Iraq war after 9/11/2001 the budgeting process became confused and more ad hoc. She would get up often at 4 A.M to be in the office at 5 A.M. and home by 5 P.M. The H-3 highway was a gift to her to get to work in 30 minutes.

Her transportation was a BMW Z3 which she wanted after seeing a James Bond movie. Otherwise she was very frugal except for her family. Somehow she managed to rein in Leonard's interest in expensive toys but not before some expensive purchases by him.
She became interested in volunteering at the Kailua library and walking on the beach with a growing set of friends to pick up trash and collect bottles and cans which she turned in donating the money to Partners in Health over $1000 per year. She had her picture in the local newspaper as one of the beach babes.

She and Leonard did have their midlife crisis. She did get some psychiatric help and has greatly benefited from taking antidepressant medications which have removed the sadness and depression she felt. He finally realized what a gem he had and stopped his angst and hurtful behaviors.

Around this time (1979-1980) she lived with her family in Jerusalem for nine months. The children attended public school which she helped with. She readily made friends and wanted to master the language and understand the culture. This was a time of hope since Begin and Sadat had agreed on peace. She attended the ulpan (language school) and rapidly began to speak Hebrew which did not happen for Leonard. He could read Hebrew letters and pronounce the words with no understanding but she could not master reading Hebrew. She attended a conference on women’s rights all in Hebrew with great understanding.

On leaving Israel she went with Leonard to New Delhi and traveled to Fatehpur Sikri, the Taj Mahal, Shrinigar and then a jeep adventure through the Himalaya mountains with 14000 foot passes to the Buddhist ancient city of Leh in Laddakh. She saw the eternal princess in Katmandu and then returned to life in Hawaii

They arranged to have trips with the children that turned into great adventures. Cattle ranch horseback riding in Butch Cassidy surroundings, river rafting on the Green river for nine days, camping in a RV in Alaska, hiking the Cloud Mountains of Idaho for eleven days, visiting national parks such as Zion, Bryce, Arches, Yellowstone, and the Grand Canyon in winter. Then as college took the kids she and Leonard went to Arizona and even the Russian Far East. She visited England, France, and Barcelona with good friends Bob abd Iz Avakian and then a few years later had a great trip to Prague and Bohemia with Mark Shlacter. She went with Leonard to Portugal to the town of Beija for two weeks as a volunteer (Global Volunteers) teaching English and then touring. The Pacific Northwest was another great trip from the San Juan Islands to San Francisco. They did elder hostel trips to Santa Fe and the White mountains of Arizona. Of course, they went with family and friends to the outer islands.

Her mother who developed Alzheimer's disease was settle at Pohainani so Ann did the hiring of the helpers and made sure she was taken care of. However, her mother's deterioration did frighten Ann so she pursued testing for risk factors. She also continued now an adult lifelong habit of smoking cigarettes which finally has resulted in her diagnosis of pancreatic cancer in Leonard's view. Before this diagnosis she agreed that she was increasingly happy with her life, enjoying her relationship with Leonard and happy that her children were thriving and her grandchildren were close to her.

Before her diagnosis she commented to Leonard that she was "done" meaning she had accomplished what she wanted and she did not want anything else in her life. Unfortunately, almost on cue she had biliary obstruction followed soon by the diagnosis of cancer. To her this meant that she was done. She and Leonard had read Being Mortal by Atul Gawande so she decided that she did not want any attempts to cure the cancer. Leonard tried his best to influence her into having a Whipple operation with a cure rate (five year survival) of 25% but she would have none of it. Being very smart and diplomatic she went to the doctors' appointments with Leonard with the same decision to let the cancer take its course.

After a few months the stent placed in her bile duct failed and she became sicker so went to the hospice in Enchanted Lake. This is a great place both with nice views and great rooms and mostly terrific understanding, responsive, caring staff. As usual Ann was very popular with the staff listening to their own concerns and personal life stories. She appreciates the visits from friends and family but gradually had become weaker and then unable to get out of her bed without assistance. Nevertheless, she has not been in pain and did continue to plan to leave this life by stopping eating and drinking.

I have lost my loving personal companion but carry her in my heart which is some comfort. Her children embody her goodness and miss her so they have become even closer in their relationships. Their families and six grandchildren all smile and recall their experiences with her. We all want you to enjoy this party of remembrance. Share stories with those who had only a glimpse of her, recall others you may have lost and today brings back some of their memories and let us all support your happiness and joy in life.