By Rebecca Goodman
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Mr. Jacobs

SPRINGFIELD TWP. - Edward Eugene Jacobs Sr., founder of Cedar Grove Homestead Association, a cooperative that helped African-Americans find quality housing in Cincinnati, and founder of Hollydale Homes in Springfield Township, died of cancer at Good Samaritan Hospital on Dec. 4. He was 82.

Mr. Jacobs became interested in housing for blacks after he returned from a three-year stint as a surgical technician with the Army in Europe during World War II. African-Americans didn't enjoy the same freedoms in financing, buying or selling real property that whites did.

So he and other African-Americans founded Cedar Grove Homestead Association in 1948. Their legal adviser was Theodore M. Berry, later the first African-American mayor of Cincinnati.

Hollydale is a community of about 250 homes that afforded African-Americans the opportunity to build new houses. It was developed by African-Americans and Mr. Jacobs himself lived there.

He was recognized by the Ohio House of Representatives of the 119th General Assembly for his work in developing Hollydale.

Born in Hartwell in 1920, Mr. Jacobs was the son of George Roscoe and Georgia Verna Gentry Jacobs.

"He possessed a very gentle, giving and loving manner," said his sister, Barbara Kennedy of Springfield Township. "He was a consummate gentleman who was completely devoted to his family."

Educated in the public schools of Glendale, Mr. Jacobs went to war in 1942. He received training at Fort Benjamin Harrison in Indiana and operated a medical dispensary in Cherbourg, France, during the D-Day invasion.

After the war he graduated from the Salmon P. Chase College of Law and joined the U.S. Postal Service, eventually rising to superintendent of carrier operations for the Cincinnati region. He put in 39 years with the Postal Service while running a successful real estate agency, Edward E. Jacobs Realty.

Mr. Jacobs was a trustee and 50-year member of Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Lockland.

He was preceded in death by his wife last year.

In addition to his sister, survivors include a son, Edward E. Jacobs Jr. of Hollydale; a daughter, Jacqueline Jean Brown of Augusta, Ga.; another sister, Jane V. Grace of Wyoming; six grandchildren; and six great-grandchildren.

Services have been held. Burial was at Oak Hill Cemetery in Glendale.

E-mail rgoodman@enquirer.com