By Lauren FitzPatrick
Staff writer
Once Ursula Jacobius moved to Chicago from halfway around the world, she spent the rest of her long life showing off her new home.
Mrs. Jacobius gave professional tours of the City that Works — especially to German-speaking visitors — then took individuals around on a volunteer basis, too.
“It was her kind of town,” said her son Thomas Jacobius.
She loved Christkindlmarket, the traditional German Christmas market in Daley Plaza, the view from the Adler Planetarium, the lobby of the Palmer House and the Marc Chagall mosaic — and she wanted visitors and new transplants to love them, too.
“She would do whatever it took to please some of the visitors,” her son said.
Mrs. Jacobius, 85, a six-decade resident of Chicago’s Garfield Ridge community, died Jan. 7. Hospitalized after a lung cancer diagnosis, she caught an infection that caused her death.
Born Jan. 19, 1927, in Trier, Germany, the daughter of a travel editor for Standard Oil and a homemaker, Mrs. Jacobius grew up in Hamburg. Mischievous in school, she went to work as a young woman instructing farmers in eastern Germany about poultry science.
“That’s the latest techniques for making chickens more productive,” her son explained.
“She was a strong-willed person and didn’t conform as much as people would like — she was more on the practical side.”
When World War II broke out, Mrs. Jacobius had to flee the Russians.
After the war, she worked for an American colonel on a base near Munich.
Her future husband, meanwhile, fled Germany for Chicago where, as a Jew, he would live with relatives, safe from the camps during the war.
After peace was declared, the couple met in the office of the U.S. colonel where Mr. Jacobius translated war prisoner interrogations. Then he returned to Chicago — but without his lady friend, who didn’t know what to make of their future.
It wasn’t until 1948 when a telegraphed marriage proposal arrived. The Jacobiuses married Feb. 9, 1948, and settled in a home in Garfield Ridge for the duration of their marriage.
Mrs. Jacobius took a job teaching kindergarten at Zion Lutheran, then became the school’s librarian, logging 30 years with the students between 1963 and 1993.
Her pride in German history and culture led her to get involved in Chicago’s sister cities program. She started giving talks at the Field Museum about what life was like in Germany during the war.
“We came to appreciate the German culture and studied German as well,” her son said.
She also hosted German exchange students, a South African librarian and a Cambodian family.
Mrs. Jacobius was a marvelous informal ambassador for the city, said Katie Law, who coordinates the Chicago Greeters Service for the city.
“She was one of our original volunteers and was also the volunteer with the most hours — over 500 hours,” Law said. “And she was in her 80s.”
Mrs. Jacobius was the one to call for German-speaking visitors — she’d take small groups walking through the Loop and then hop on a bus with them to the museum campus.
“She was a professional tour guide and did large bus tours, but the reason she loved the greeter service was it gave her the opportunity to spend time with visitors,” Law said. “It’s like a friend showing you around.”
Mrs. Jacobius helped found the Chicago Tour Professional Association — to make sure guides were held to a certain standard — and later volunteered at the Chicago Cultural Center, too.
In her earlier days, she’d drive herself into the Loop. Later, she’d have her husband drop her off at the Orange Line and take the train downtown.
“She had so much energy,” Law said. “We only wished we were going to be like her when we were her age.”
That was until October, when she got sick and had to quit.
Through her husband, Mrs. Jacobius became interested in Jewish history, and together were founding contributors to the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C.
“She was passionate about history of all kinds,” her son said.
Mrs. Jacobius also is survived by her husband, Henry; her son, Thomas; her daughter, Rose; three grandchildren, Nicholas and Candice Jacobius, and Elli Ludwigson; and many friends.
Arrangements were by Foran Funeral Home, (708) 458-0208.
Lauren FitzPatrick may be reached at lfitzpatrick@dailysouthtown.com or (708) 633-5964.
