World War II vet celebrates a century

Fern Kinsey Jacobson was a high school senior in Grants Pass, Oregon when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.

The Fawn Lake resident, who turns 100 tomorrow, remembers listening to the radio while President Franklin Roosevelt delivered his "day that will live in infamy" speech and declare war on Japan.

"I determined at that time I'd help my country," Jacobson said in an interview with the Journal.

Jacobson would have to wait a year before she came of age to join the war effort, enlisting in the Navy Women's Reserve (WAVES) to ensure U.S. Navy personnel fighting overseas received their mail from loved ones.

"We were frightened, yet we knew everyone was going to work together to serve the country," she said.

Jacobson was born May 31, 1924, in Roseburg, Oregon, the second of two children. That same year, Soviet Union founder Vladimir Lenin died, MGM and Mercedes-Benz were founded, Calvin Coolidge became the first U.S. president to deliver a radio address, and Adolf Hitler was imprisoned for eight months for trying to overthrow the German government (he would get a second chance). As Jacobson's 77-year-old son Steve points out, "She's older than the Empire State building."

Jacobson's family raised geese and cattle, and grew alfalfa. After her parents divorced, she and her brother moved to Chicago to live with their grandparents. When their mother remarried, the family lived in Ontario, Oregon, and then Grants Pass.

After graduating from high school, Jacobson kept her resolve to join the war effort and enlisted in the Navy. She was allowed to bring two suitcases to her six weeks of boot camp at Hunter College in New York. She was then transferred to a training camp in Sampson, New York, where 35,000 men were training.

Jacobson was transferred to San Francisco. Her job was to route mail overseas to Navy personnel. Each member of the Navy was listed on a 3-by-5-inch card, she recalled.

"It was a harrowing job. When you have a letter for John Smith, how many John Smiths are there in the Navy?"

Jacobson lived in hotel used by the government, but after advancing in rank, she was allowed to live off base. She and two other WAVES rented a house on the beach. "Then I met this gorgeous sailor," she said.

Jerry lived next door and was a San Francisco native who also served with the U.S. Navy for two years in the South Pacific. Her first words to him were, "How about a beer, sailor?" "We were never separated after that," she said.

After a three-month courtship, they wed. "We got married with two suitcases and two saucepans, that's all we had." They had two children, Steve and Joanne.

Jacobson said her husband was an old-fashioned man who didn't want his wife to have a job. Instead, she became a volunteer, including helping students in the classroom, working for the rights of patients in nursing homes and advocating for people in court. When her husband developed Alzheimer's disease, she started a support group for people affected by that.

About 20 years ago, Jacobson visited Fawn Lake for the first time. Her son Steve had moved there, and she came to take care of his cat while he and his wife Kathy toured Europe, "the thought being she'd be here three weeks and be gone," he said.

Instead, "I loved it," she said. "I could hear the wind singing in the trees."

When her son returned, she informed him she was selling her house and buying property on the lake. Today, they live next door to each other.

Jacobson calls herself "a political junkie" and religiously watches MSNBC and "Morning Joe."

"I'm a liberal, flaming," she said.

Jacobson said she enjoys interacting on Facebook. "It's so dumb!" she said with a laugh.

She enjoys two martinis every day. And her advice after a century of life? "Have fun."