Nancy Jane Jacobson

Nancy Jane Nelson Jacobson was born on December 22, 1944 to the Rev. Ernest J. and Winifred H. (Edwards) Nelson in Portage, Wisconsin. She passed away at her home on the family farm on Monday, August 5, 2024.

Nancy Jacobson was raised in various communities in Michigan, Wisconsin, and South Dakota. She graduated as Valedictorian from high school in Avon, South Dakota in 1963. In 1967, she graduated Magna Cum Laude from Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota after having spent her junior year of college at Haile Selassie University in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Nancy studied 15 graduate hours in Library Media at the University of South Dakota in 1976. Then from 1997 to 1999, she enrolled in the Yankton College Licensed Lay Minister Program and became a certified licensed minister in 1999.

After her college graduation, Nancy returned to Addis Ababa where she taught at Tafari Makonnen School run by Jesuits for 5 years. It was in Addis Ababa that she met and married Martin Jacobson from Pennsylvania. Upon her return to the United States in 1971, Nancy worked as a paraprofessional in the Sioux Falls school system, a special education substitute in Salem, South Dakota, and a VISTA volunteer in the school system of Ogden, Utah. After returning to Sioux Falls, South Dakota, Nancy worked side by side with her husband Martin as a houseparent and counselor to emotionally disturbed teenage girls.

Nancy played the piano and organ and happily attended Presbyterian Musicians Workshops and a United Church of Christ Musicians Workshop. Nancy served on the World Board of the United Church of Christ and Disciples of Christ for 10 years and served on the Committee of Ministry of the United Church of Christ in South Dakota for several years.

Nancy served as a pastor of Christian Education at Crestwood United Church of Christ in Sioux Falls, South Dakota and was given a certificate for excellence in teaching by the Division of Education and Publication of the United Church Board for Homeland Ministries. She worked first as assistant director and then director of the Shalom Center of Augustana College in Sioux Falls and as the Librarian at First United Methodist Church in Sioux Falls. She was a librarian there for over 30 years. She served two parishes as a licensed minister; the Congregational United Church of Christ in Hudson, South Dakota and the United Church of Eskridge in Kansas.

Martin and Nancy adopted and raised two children, Theodore Nelson Jacobson and Andrea Martin Jacobson. Nancy and Martin enjoyed traveling abroad before they had children and after they had children they traveled with them to every state in the continental United States, usually camping during those trips. Nancy was an avid reader often enjoying as many as 5 books at a time. After retiring Martin and Nancy moved to a farm where their son, daughter-in-law, and grandchildren lived and enjoyed growing fruit trees and flowers and gardening vegetables.

Nancy is predeceased by her parents Ernest and Winifred Nelson and her brothers Ralph and Larry Nelson. Nancy is survived by her husband Martin, her sister Karen Gullickson, her son and his wife Ted and Sherri Jacobson, her daughter and her husband Annie Jacobson and Jon Gonzales, her three granddaughters Kyplee Lillian Jane, Kailynn Cordelia Marie, and Treyanne Winifred Grace, as well as numerous loving in-laws, nieces, and nephews.

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