Holmes Jacobs has informed us of the passing of his father, Travis Beal Jacobs ‘54, 89, who died at his home in Bridport, VT, on September 16, surrounded by his loved ones. Here is the obituary:
Jacobs was born in New York City in 1936, the son of Albert C. and Loretta Beal Jacobs. During WWII, his family lived in Alexandria, VA, and after the war lived in Ann Arbor, MI, the family hometown, until his father returned to Columbia University as a Professor of Law and, then, Provost under President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Travis loved taking the subway up to the Polo Grounds for New York Giants games, especially when they played to Brooklyn Dodgers with Jackie Robinson.
Travis attended Deerfield Academy and Princeton University ’58. Initially, he planned to attend Columbia Law School, but at the last minute, he pursued a Ph.D. in American History at Columbia under William E. Leuchtenburg. In 1965, he joined the faculty at Middlebury College and soon began teaching a popular two-semester lecture course on 20th-century American History. He served as Department Chair for seventeen years. A College Review Committee asserted: “He was one of the first department chairs to embrace the College’s aspirations in minority recruiting, and he is certainly the most conspicuously successful.” His publications include America and the Russo-Finnish Winter War, 1939-1940; co-editing Navigating the Rapids, 1918-1971, the Diaries of Adolf A. Berle, a FDR Brain Truster; Eisenhower at Columba; and Dwight D. Eisenhower and the Founding of the American Assembly. He also edited the Middlebury College General Catalogue: Bicentennial Edition, 2000, a Who Was Who and Who’s Who of the College. He received several Earhart Foundation Fellowships; taught in Tunis on a Fulbright; served on the Presidential Studies Quarterly Editorial Board; and attended many Salzburg Seminars on American Studies. He was president of the Henry Sheldon Museum in Middlebury during the capital campaign that led to the Paris Fletcher Community Center, and he established the J. Robert Maguire Fund for its research center. He retired as Fletcher D. Proctor Emeritus of American History in 2008. From 1983 to 1986, he served as President of the Chappaquiddick Island Association. In the early 21st Century, he and his traveling companion, Constance Carroll, made a series of trips to Europe, ranging from France to Hungary, from Spain, Italy, Sicily, and Tunisia to Russia and Finland. During the past decade, Travis spent time throughout the year at Chazy Lake in the Adirondacks. He leaves unfinished a study of the late Vermonter Robert T. Stafford, former Governor, U.S. Congressman, and U. S. Senator.
His family is grateful for assistance from Addison Home, Health, and Hospice, and UVM Oncology. Besides his parents, he was predeceased by his older sisters Loretta J. Edwards and Sarah J. Edwards, and Lulu M. Lindemann, a dear family companion for nearly seventy years, and two former wives, Judith A. Hasselbrack and Eleanor T. Morison, the mother of his sons T. Beal Jacobs, Jr., and Holmes M. Jacobs, who own Two Brothers Tavern in Middlebury. Besides his sons, he is survived by three grandchildren, Jackson, Piper, and Sally Jacobs, and long-time partner, Connie Carroll. A memorial service will be held at Saint Stephen’s Episcopal Church in Middlebury, VT, on Saturday, October 18.
