Carl Edward Jacobsen (Jake) Obituary (1929

Carl Edward Jacobsen, who grew up on a farm in Depression-era Iowa, served in the Army in post-war Italy, practiced veterinary medicine for 40 years and was an award-winning California winemaker, died on August 4, 2025. He was 96. He was man of boundless curiosity and optimism whose humor and generosity live on with those who knew him. Carl was born in 1929 to immigrant parents — Lillian from England, Soren from Denmark — in Waterloo, Iowa, and named after his Danish grandfather. Soren was working as a diary-products delivery man and about a year later, Carl was joined by a brother, Neil. Some of his earliest memories were of adventures with local kids at a metal foundry and adjacent dump down the street from the family home. He bore a scar on his left eyebrow from one junkyard wagon ride gone wrong. The family moved to three different farms in the ‘30s before settling outside Readlyn in 1940. Carl and Neil worked with their father milking cows, tending to hogs and laboring in the cornfields, living in farmhouses without indoor plumbing or electricity. The hardscrabble life was not without its fun: Years later Carl would tell stories of kids being flung out of bowed trees, and “sailcat,” a pre-Frisbee tossing contest involving desiccated roadkill. There was also tragedy. Their little sister, Beverly, drowned in a cattle-watering tank, devastating the family. Carl and Neil were later joined by two more brothers, Alan and Berl. Carl was one of 16 members of Readlyn High School’s class of 1946. His interest in science was sparked by Paul de Kruif’s “Microbe Hunters,” and the local veterinarian’s work with the family’s livestock inspired a career path. The next stop was Iowa State’s school of veterinary medicine, partly financed by bussing tables in the college cafeteria and donating blood. Most of his classmates were older World War II veterans, who struggled along with Carl to pass the demanding courses and at least once let off steam with a meat fight in the equine anatomy lab. On campus, Carl was exposed to classical music and organized sports. The head of the music department gave up trying to teach him piano but lessons on music history led to a lifelong love of pre-1827 (the year of Beethoven’s death) classical music. Witnessing the University of Oklahoma’s 63-0 massacre of Iowa State on one Ames October afternoon cemented his indifference to football or any other sport. “Jake,” as he was known to just about everyone besides his parents and brothers, had a brief stint at the Iowa Diagnostic Lab after graduating in 1951 but was lured to Forsyth, Montana, by John Melcher, who had graduated from Iowa State a year earlier and would later be elected a U.S. senator from Montana. The two of them operated a practice that focused on treating beef cattle on far-flung ranches. The physically demanding job required long drives on icy roads, fording bridgeless rivers and at least one trip on a small airplane piloted by a rancher fond of shooting at coyotes from the cockpit midflight. Jake’s Montana adventures, however, were cut short by Uncle Sam. In 1953, he was drafted and about to join the troops headed to the Korean War when he learned about the Army Veterinary Corps, responsible for ensuring the quality of the meat and dairy fed to the soldiers. First assigned to inspecting Oscar Mayer and other plants in Madison, Wisconsin, Jake saw his chance to see the world, snagging an overseas assignment to Salzburg, Austria, and eventually Livorno, Italy, a northern port city bombed by the Allies only a few years earlier. He fell in love with Italy and volunteered to stay a third year in the Army, using his leave time to travel, visiting relatives in Denmark and even reaching Egypt. While in Livorno, he met Aphrodite Karolides, the daughter of Greek immigrants, a U.S. civilian from New York working as a clerk typist at a base hospital. Despite their disparate upbringings, the two shared a love of music, art, books and travel. They were married in New York but sought a place that could replicate Italy’s climate: California beckoned. Jake did lab work, first in San Gabriel, then at UC Davis, but he grew frustrated and decided to go into private practice. The couple moved to San Jose, where in 1959 they welcomed a daughter, Leslie, followed by a son, Richard, in 1961. Jake had converted a single-family home in a recently rezoned neighborhood in Campbell into the Cambrian Animal Hospital. The small-animal practice grew with Santa Clara Valley, from a solo practice to a three-veterinarian operation. In what he later described as the high point in his veterinary career, Jake took the family in the early 1970s to England, where he did an unpaid sabbatical studying radiology at London’s Royal Veterinary College. He later wrote that his divorce in the early 1980s was the low point in his life. But Jake was not one to sulk; into his life came Hannah, a bright, beautiful, vibrant mother of three sons — Bill, Scott and David. Her many qualities included a sense of humor that tolerated Jake’s fondness for practical jokes, like planting a phony “Sold” sign outside her house and a dog tag in a jar of beef jerky. They were married in 1986, and they enjoyed regular trips to the family cabin in Butte County, across the U.S., and to farther flung places, from Portugal to Chile to Egypt. Jake sold his practice in the late 1980s, and the couple embarked on a new chapter, moving to a home in El Dorado County with enough land to satisfy Jake’s inner farm boy. They planted a vineyard, grew fruits and vegetables and became certified Master Gardeners. Jake gave thrills to a flock of grandchildren with rides on his John Deere tractor and was harvesting grapes, bottling wine and chain sawing oak tress well into his 80s. Their Zinfandels, Cabernet Sauvignons, Merlots and Sauvignon Blancs won medals and ribbons in home wine making competitions in Lodi and El Dorado County. Jake was a founding member of a “think tank” of mainly like-minded liberals meeting in a local diner each week to solve the world’s problems over cups of coffee. By 2020 it was time to downsize. Jake and Hannah moved to El Dorado Hills, where Jake expanded his mind with visits to museums and plowing an endless row of books. He loved visits from his sons, daughter, their spouses and children, always curious about their lives, and they in turn were entertained with stories of his adventures in Iowa, Montana, Italy and beyond. He was recounting these stories and laughing about them until the day he died. He is survived by brothers Alan and Berl, wife Hannah, children Leslie, Richard, Bill, Scott, David, their spouses Jonathan, Lorraine, Vicki, Kenia, Loren, and 10 grandchildren. His family and countless friends will miss him, a man who lived an extraordinary life. Click this link to view additional details about Carl's Services, including any available live streams: https://my.gather.app/remember/carl-jacobsen