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Jan was a true Renaissance woman. As a student she was skilled and enthusiastic about many fields of science and was especially proficient in mathematics where her passion was geometry. She often challenged her geometry teacher with questions of her own. Her real passion, though, was the art classes she could squeeze into her scientific studies. Her father, Claude, an engineer by training and skilled homebuilder appreciated his daughter’s scientific prowess and encouraged her to add a teaching qualification so she could always be employed. He didn’t encourage more art even though her mother, Athelene, was an accomplished artist and interior decorator.
As a teenager Jan confronted her parents about her name. Her birth certificate said Cathleen Jan but she announced that for the rest of her life she would only answer to Jan. Her reason was an artistic one, the initial C just wasn’t as interesting as the letter J. For the rest of her life her father, who was as stubborn as she was, refused to call her Jan and adopted his pet name for her, Sugar or Shug for short.​
1941 - 2024
Jan Jacobsen
During her public school years in Billings, MT. her after school hours were filled with dance, from classical ballet to flag and baton twirling with the high school band. In college she added modern dance to her repertoire.
​After graduation from the University of Montana with a Bachelor of Science degree in Mathematics Jan headed to the big city of Portland where she was immediately hired to teach high school mathematics at Woodrow Wilson High School. As a result of a faculty sabbatical, she took over the higher level math classes, including the geometry she loved. In an era of short skirts her beautiful legs were a definite distraction for her male students who were only a few years younger than she was. She managed to keep their attention on her classes with her enthusiasm and passion.
Married to Gary Jacobsen, a medical resident at OHSU, she took two breaks from teaching to become a mother of Kristina and Bernt and continue her own education with Masters level classes at Portland State. After a break with Bernt she returned to teaching at Washington High School and added a new course in computer science to her repertoire of higher-level math classes.
Following her divorce and a year as a single mother of two she was invited, along with one of her top math students, to a dinner sponsored by the Portland Actuarial Society to honor top math students in the Portland area. The chairman and emcee for the dinner was Paul Hart, a rising young consulting actuary, who was immediately captivated by her big brown eyes and sparkling smile. Four dates later it was clear to them that this was it and a second marriage for both of them quickly followed. Jan became the stepmother to Paul’s two children, Bruce and Jennifer.
To complicate her life even further Paul became one of the Charter members of the Mt. Park Racquet Club and Jan took up a tennis racquet for the first time in her life. In her typical fashion she was soon playing interclub competitions and competing at a high level.
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Jan continued teaching until the late 1970’s when Paul became a partner and head of the Portland office of Milliman, an international actuarial consulting firm. Finally able to focus some time and energy on herself after all four kids could drive, Jan enrolled in the Fine Arts program at Marylhurst University. Her part-time studies soon became full time enrollment and six years later she graduated with a second complete university career and a Bachelor of Fine Arts.
To fill her summer breaks from teaching and attending school Jan began to develop a large and ultimately very successful vegetable garden in her back yard. Any area not filled with vegetables soon became home to annual and perennial flowers which made her garden a showplace. Although she had some help from other gardeners, she was essentially self -taught and her collection of gardening books quickly rivaled her art books. All four of her children were reluctant participants in this garden venture from which they all acquired a life long appreciation for growing things and a life long distaste for pulling weeds.
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With Jan’s grudging approval Paul left the security of the consulting business to join a young life insurance business started by a couple of his clients. His partners in insurance became his first investment partners when he started Rex Hill, one of the early Oregon wineries. When told by Paul that he was starting a winery ( in which he had no experience) along with the fledgling insurance business and four kids in college Jan had a typical reaction: “I think it’s a mistake and for the sake of our marriage I won’t even discuss the winery with you until you have the first harvest and we see if it works”.​
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The first harvest was a rousing success; Jan quickly became an enthusiastic and committed partner who helped sell Rex Hill wines around the world and surrounded the growing winery near Newberg with acres of beautiful gardens. The gardens became the site of the first family wedding when Bernt added his new wife Julie to Jan’s daughters. Jan trained the first tasting room staff and represented Rex Hill on the Board of the new Yamhill County Wineries Association.​​​​
Although Paul continued to complicate her life with his business ventures, Jan was able to start her own career as an artist. When she entered Marylhurst her biggest fear was that she wouldn’t have enough original ideas to make art a career. Boy was she wrong! It soon became apparent that her concern should have been just the opposite. To the end of her life she had more creative ideas than she could pursue with the time available. Despite interest from local galleries, she decided to focus her studio time on commissioned pieces where she would work with her client to develop a special work of art just for them. Her work progressed from large acrylic two dimensional paintings to complex three dimensional sculptures of papier mache on a wire base. The sculptures were finished with gold and silver leaf and a multitude of acrylic colors. Her largest sculpture was 18 feet long and required a team of helpers and complicated block and tackle to move it from her second floor studio onto a flatbed trailer to be delivered to a seafood restaurant where it graced a full wall and set the theme for the rest of the decoration.
A founding member of the Oregon Wine Brotherhood, Jan designed the robes, hats and other regalia for the group and served as its first Master Sommelier. She and Paul visited many other wine regions of the world as guests of other wine organizations and helped host an International Congress of wine brotherhoods in Portland.
Once Paul’s businesses were thriving Jan looked for a replacement for tennis and settled on a membership in the Oswego Lake Country Club where she became a proficient golfer and enthusiastic member. She was soon recruited to become a member (and subsequently Treasurer and President) of the Women’s Board of the club. She was also invited to become a member of the Oregon Women’s Forum and continued to expand her wide group of friends.
Her nine grandchildren were an important part of her life. From her son Bernt and his wife Julie, Jan had grandchildren Lea, Steffen and Matthew Jacobsen. From her daughter Kristina she had Tori, Derrick, Marco and Kyle Gentile and with Kristina’s second marriage to Wes Higgins gained two more granddaughters Makenzie and Morgan Higgins. Of all her roles in life Jan found Grandmother to be the most rewarding. The whole family has memories of Jan sitting in a sandbox or in her garden with one or more of her grandkids, talking about nature and what it meant to be alive.
After Jan and Paul sold Rex Hill in 2006 she focused her energies on her art career, her garden, international travel and her growing family, including her 9 grandchildren. She started showing signs of dementia around 2015 but continued her active life for several more years until the effects of her Lewy Body dementia ultimately forced her into hospice care. She was very fortunate to find loving caregivers, Adriana and Melissa, who helped make the last three years of her life at home comfortable, aided by the nurses and CNA’s of Brighton Hospice. Her long-time best friend Sandi and Sandi’s daughter Nikki spent hours at her bedside providing smiles and love.
The final chapter of her life was written after her death in December, 2024 when her body was sent to Seattle to be combined with other organic material which ultimately was composted. The compost will be added to her garden in a private family ceremony in the Spring along with a new crop of fruits and vegetables.
The remaining members of the Hart Jacobsen family have commissioned a memorial performance of Brahms Requiem on April 26, 2025 for friends, family and subscribers to the Portland Choir and Orchestra.
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All art featured on the website is by Jan Jacobsen.
All artwork featured on the website was created by Jan Jacobsen