Laura was born 9-15-31 in Chattanooga, TN to Lora Bell Fuller and Frank Plummer Sr. She had a fraternal twin Frank Plummer who died in 1989. Sadly, her mother died from a heart attack when she was three years old. Her father was a train engineer which was a position of status at the time. He passed when Laura was 13, and her older step sister Kathleen and her husband Dick Rowe became her and her brother’s legal guardians. This would be one of a couple of things that changed her trajectory.
After high school, she attended University of TN in Knoxville for a few semesters but needed to earn money to support herself and her guardians so she decided to attend business school where she learned the secretarial skills that would allow her to get a job quickly. At this time she was also recruited by Eastern Air Lines to be a stewardess. She moved to Jacksonville, FL as part of her training. After a crash landing she decided that this wasn’t the career path for her.
During the Summer of 1955, she met her future husband Irwin Jacobson in Jacksonville. She also at that time was a secretary to the manager of the Florida State Theater there. In addition to movies they hosted music performances. One such show was Elvis Presley. Turned out that Elvis was smitten with her and invited her to join his ‘posse’ but that wasn’t for her.
In early 1956, Irwin returned to Chicago to seek a diagnosis for what turned out to be a rare form of Gout which effected his upper body. After this was figured out he had Laura come to Chicago and they were married on November 2, 1956.
By 1959, the aerospace boom was underway and to Belmont, CA they moved. Her only child Mark Jacobson was born on July 3, 1960. Soon thereafter the young family moved to Sunnyvale to be closer to Lockheed where Irwin worked. Through time she found that there was a lack of professional childcare available and soon opened an employment agency (Peninsula Baby Sitters) that focused on in home babysitting. With the growth of Silicon Valley she placed sitters with visiting technology professionals, many of whom moved to the area and continued to utilize her agency. She liked working with children and the elderly. She became a favorite of some the 49ers of the ‘80s as she was from the South and gave them a sense of home.
Laura also branched into real estate, and worked in the local mobile home industry for many years.
Laura loved to cook and her specialties were chocolate fudge with walnuts, cornbread, Cakes, Red, White and Blues Birthday cake for Mark’s birthday every year, Matzo Ball Soup, Pot Roast, Okra-Corn-Onion scramble, latkes, and all those Passover foods. Laura inspired and encouraged her son to cook.
By the mid-1990s health issues arose, mainly a diagnosis of cancer in one of her kidneys. As she had a near death experience many years earlier while under anesthesia she opted for chemo instead of an operation and got lucky as the cancer did not spread. Her regimen of supplements seemed to have helped with keeping the cancer under control and with minimizing other health issues that arose.
Laura and her husband were members of Temple Emanu-El in San Jose since 1966. While Rabbi Gitin was her favorite, she liked Rabbi Dana Magat and the way he managed services and she found his sermons timely and uplifting. She also has enjoyed the musical talents of the most recent female Cantors (Meeka, Amanda and now Leah).
In lieu of flowers, please consider making a donation in her honor to the American Cancer Society, or the Humane Society.
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