Norman Leonard Jacobs was born in Bath, England in 1885, the eldest child of Isaiah Woolf and Josephine (née Hast) Jacobs. His maternal grandfather, Marcus Hast, was the Chazan of the Great Synagogue in London and a collector and composer of music ( Avodat HaKodesh, 1910). Isaiah worked as the partner in a London accounting firm until its 1899 bankruptcy, after which he was employed in family businesses in London, Pittsburgh, and Detroit. One of Norman’s sisters, Ruth, married a Winnipeg barrister; after his early death, she supported herself and her son as a writer, gaining a large readership for articles and poetry written as “Sheila Rand” and “Wilhelmina Stitch.” Another, Dorothea, settled in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and raised a family.
Norman Jacobs moved to Pittsburgh in 1903 and spent two years working at his uncle Abraham’s insurance company, Benswanger & Hast. In 1905, he moved to Winnipeg, which he described with great enthusiasm and affection. He worked in the book department of Eaton’s Department Store for a few months, until he secured a position as a draughtsman in the engineering department of the Canadian Northern Railway. By April 1906 he was in the employ of the Grand Trunk Pacific and entered the field for the first time as a topographer. The survey teams were tasked with mapping routes that provided a four-tenths of one percent grade between the 50th and 55th parallel; by laying rail on such nearly level ground, the company aimed to travel through the Rocky Mountains as quickly as over prairies. Over the course of four years, Jacobs was employed in a variety of roles—leveler’s rodman, topographer’s rodman, quartermaster, topographer, leveler, head of a topographical and exploratory party, transit man, instrument man and draughtsman.
It was during his time with the Grand Trunk Pacific that he wrote most of the letters in the collection. The letters are to Bessie Frank (later Anathan), an acquaintance from Pittsburgh. The letters describe his life, the harsh conditions confronting the survey teams, as well as his impressions of life in Canada.
The Grand Trunk Pacific Railway, incorporated in 1903, was built between 1906 and 1914. Its 3000 miles of track extended from Winnipeg, Manitoba to Prince Rupert, British Columbia. The GTPR was a subsidiary of the Grand Trunk Railway, created in the hope that the transcontinental leg would help the GTR compete with the western track systems of the Canadian Pacific Railway and the Canadian Northern Railway. However, financial difficulties plagued the GTPR, and in 1919 the GTR was nationalized. Four years later, it was placed under the management of the Canadian National Railway.
Following the end of his survey work, Jacobs temporarily relocated to London, and in 1910 was engaged in post graduate schooling at the Imperial College of Science and Technology in London. In 1911, Jacobs returned to Pittsburgh and proposed marriage to Bessie Frank; she declined. In September of the same year, he became engaged to Flora Baer, a former Pittsburgher and resident of Philadelphia’s Germantown neighborhood. The proposal to Baer seems to have been hasty, for shortly thereafter Norman departed for Canada once more. He became a partner in Nordquist Bros., a railroad contractor; legal action was brought against the firm in 1912 and 1913. After this, the record is silent as to Norman Jacobs' fate.
Bibliography:
“Bankrupts from the London Gazette.” The Edinburgh Gazette. April 4, 1899. http://www.edinburgh-gazette.co.uk/issues/11081/pages/343/page.pdf. Accessed 3 November 2011.
Currey, Josiah Seymour. “Sidney M. Siesel.” In History of Milwaukee, City and County, Volume 2, 720. Chicago and Milwaukee: The S. J. Clarke Publishing Company, 1922. http://books.google.com/books/about/History_of_Milwaukee_city_and_county.html?id=0EEVAAAAYAAJ. Accessed 3 November 2011.
Goldsborough, Gordon. “Ruth Jacobs Cohen Collie (1888-1936).” The Manitoba Historical Society Website. http://www.mhs.mb.ca/docs/people/collie_rjc.shtml. Accessed 3 November 2011.
Lefkowitz, Sarah and Minnie Susman. “Bessie Frank Anathan Interview.” National Council of Jewish Women Oral History Project. March 4, 1975. AIS.1964.40. http://images.library.pitt.edu/cgi-bin/i/image/image-idx?view=entry;cc=ncjw;entryid=x-ais196440.015. Accessed 24 October 2011.
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Marsh, James. “Grand Trunk Railway of Canada.” The Canadian Encyclopedia. http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/index.cfm?PgNm=TCE&Params=A1ARTA0003380. Accessed 10 November 2011.
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Shisler, Geoffery L. The Homepage of Rabbi Geoffrey L. Shisler. http://geoffreyshisler.com/Hast.htm. Accessed 3 November 2011.
“Social and Local News.” The Jewish Criterion vol. 33, issue 4. September 1, 1911. http://pjn.library.cmu.edu/books/pages.cgi?call=CRI_1911_033_004_09011911&layout=vol0/part0/copy0&file=0010. Accessed 3 November 2011.
Talbot, Frederick A. The Making of a Great Canadian Railway. London: Seeley, Service & Co., Ltd., 1912. http://www.archive.org/details/makingofgreatcan00talb. Accessed 10 November 2011.