DESIGNS ON LOVE

As Jacobson pursued a bachelor’s degree in fine arts, he was tapped to teach classes on campus by art department head Doel Reed. It was there he met the love of his life, Jeanne Rollier

“One of the classes I taught was for home economics students,” he says. “Every six weeks I would get about 20 or 30 new students who would come in and do something basic with a color chart, learn how to mix colors and what the primary and secondaries were, tonal values … Jeanne was in one of my classes, and well of course I noticed her right away. At one point I asked her if she would like to be our Aggievator girl of the month, and she said, ‘I guess so.’ She didn’t know what it was.

“I couldn’t ask her out as a date because I was her instructor, but as soon as she was finished with that section of the class we got together pretty fast. I met her in the fall, and we were engaged by New Year’s.”

Jacobson and the Lamont, Okla. native (Rollier’s parents owned the movie theater in the Grant County town of less than 600) wed in 1950. They were married nearly 64 years until Jeanne’s passing in 2014.

“She was smart, beautiful, kind, fiercely loyal and a wonderful mother,” he says. “She was my best friend. Deep down I feel like the main reason I attended Oklahoma A&M was to meet her. She was the love of my life, and I miss her dearly.”

Jacobson continued to draw for Wile and the O’Colly and worked to establish his own freelance illustration business while finishing up his degree. “Anything to earn a buck at that time,” he says.

“I wasn’t a hanger-outer because I was always looking for work. My GI Bill was good for only two-and-a-half years. I had my own silkscreen shop with a partner, Dick Gilpin , where we mostly produced posters and signs. We also made the set backgrounds for the drama department and decorations for the fieldhouse dances.”

In those days, Stillwater was a popular stop on the big band circuit. Jacobson recalls seeing some of the biggest names in music play to enthusiastic audiences at Gallagher Hall.

“ Woody Herman was there … Spike Jones and his City Slickers came. That was a crazy outfit, and we really enjoyed it. Matter of fact, we got pictures of those guys looking at a copy of the Aggievator. So I guess I must have corralled them some way and gotten some publicity for it.”

Bandleader Tommy Dorsey was one of Jacobson’s favorites.

“We had a contract to decorate the fieldhouse for a prom he was playing,” he adds. “We got streamers and attached them to the scoreboard. I don’t know how we got them up there, but I do know that I was exhausted and Jeanne was exhausted. Still, Tommy Dorsey was so good that we danced every dance — you just couldn’t not dance, no matter how tired you were. But the streamers kept coming down, and the next thing you know you’re having to duck them because they stretched in the heat. Somehow I got upstairs and walked along some iffy-looking place and found a crank and cranked the scoreboard back up to raise those streamers so we wouldn’t all get hooked on them. It was kind of fun.”