Obituaries

Recent Obituaries
In Memoriam Archive

Jacqueline Cecile Jump Kolb ’45

Jacqueline Cecile Jump Kolb ’45, July 16, 2012, in Seattle, Washington, from heart disease. Jacques grew up in Montana, speaking French ahead of English. Her father had been a medical corpsman during World War I in France and met her mother there. Language fascinated Jacques, who refined her French and gained proficiency in German in high school. On a trip to France, with a layover in London, she met two Portlanders who raved about Reed, she said in an interview in 2004. “When we returned to Montana, I was at the point of trying to decide what to do next. I remembered what the Portland ladies in London had told me about Reed.” Highlights of her time at Reed included a humanities conference with Dorothy Johansen ’33 [history 1934–84]; attending teas in Anna Mann; listening to music in Capehart; and meeting Béla Bartók, who gave a lecture on his method of composing. At Reed, “everything was intellectually exciting.” Her friends included Arthur Church ’45, Don Leonard ’45, and Lois Dobbie Sigeti ’46. Jacques’ interest in Russian, which Reed did not offer at the time, led her to the University of Michigan and to Barnard College, where she completed a degree in international studies. She worked for the Army Map Services in Washington, D.C., in 1946, transliterating Russian maps into English. After the war, she worked as a clerk-typist in Seattle. Jacques was married to architect and University of Washington professor Keith R. Kolb. Her husband and two sons survive her.

Appeared in Reed magazine: December 2012

comments powered by Disqus