Aphrodite Jacobsen, a woman of intellect, class and adventure, passed away on September 8 after a long and eventful life. She was 92.

Aphri, or Carol as some knew her, was the third child of Dimitrios (James) and Katerina (Katherine) Karolides, who immigrated to the United States after their families were expelled from their homes in the Anatolia region of Turkey along with other ethnic Greeks in the 1920s. Aphri was born in Albany, New York, growing up with her beloved big sister Mary and brother Nicholas. Her first language was Greek, and she did not learn English until after Mary started school and taught it toher younger siblings.

In her early teens, Aphri moved with her family to New York City, settling in the Washington Heights neighborhood, then a hub of Greek, Jewish, Irish and other immigrant communities. In that neighborhood she made lifelong friends, eventually graduating from George Washington High School. Her parents did not have the means to send their daughters to college, so Aphri began doing secretarial work for advertising firms in downtown Manhattan. But that world was too small, so Aphri signed on to work as a civilian secretary for the U.S. Army in post-war Europe of the early 1950s, much to her parents’ chagrin. She first worked in Salzberg, Austria, where she taught English on the side to the wife of famed painter Felix Albrecht Harta, who was so taken by her exotic look that he painted her portrait (another Harta subject was U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower). She was later assigned to the U.S. Army base in Livorno, Italy. There she met a young lieutenant in the Veterinary Corps, Carl “Jake” Jacobsen, who had grown up on a farm in Iowa, the son of Danish and English immigrants. While polar opposites in background, Jake and Aphri shared a mutual love for classical music, travel and the people of Italy. After returning to the U.S., they were married in New York’s St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church.

The couple eventually settled in San Jose, California, where Jake built a small animal clinic in nearby Campbell, with Aphri serving as the clinic’s first bookkeeper. Their daughter, Leslie, was born in 1959, followed by a son, Richard, in 1961, and in 1964 the family moved to a home in the Willow Glen neighborhood, where Aphri would live for the next 59 years. While raising her family (she described herself as one of theoriginal “soccer moms”), she became an avid tennis player and skier. In her late 40s she enrolled in San Jose State University to finally get her college degree, obtaining a bachelors in English Literature. After she and Jake divorced, she returned to the workforce, doing secretarial work for San Jose companies. In her later years, her passions included supporting the Willow Glen Public Library and serving as a docent at the San Jose Museum of Art. Her favorite place on earth was the family property on the Feather River in Butte County that she referred to as “High Heaven,” which she would visit with friends or by herself and revel in its peaceful beauty. She made many dear friends in her book club, memoir group, bridge klatch, and on regular Sierra Club hiking excursions. 

Aphri will be sorely missed by her two children, three grandchildren, five nieces and their families who regularlygathered at her home for Greek Easter and other holidays, marveling at her cooking and baking skills, passed down from her own mother. 

The family would like to thank caregivers at Family Matters and the Ivy at Golden Gate in San Francisco, where Aphri spent her final months. A life-long proud liberal and champion of culture and literacy, she would be honored to have donations made in her name to Planned Parenthood, the ACLU, the Willow Glen Library or the San Jose Museum of Art.