Remembrance of the Life of Peg Jacobs CoL

Loretto Co-member Peg Jacobs died peacefully in the company of her family and Loretto friends as the Community was together in prayer Sunday morning, June 28, 2026. Peg, who was 93, had been a friend of Loretto since meeting Mary Luke Tobin in the 1960s. She had lived all 28 years of her co-membership at Loretto Motherhouse, contributing from a wealth of skills developed as a member and staff for the United Church of Christ.

Peg left her family and Loretto companions a large body of autobiographical materials, including brief sketches of the last 28 years when she lived as a Loretto Co-member here at the Motherhouse.  What follows is largely in her own words.

 She tells us: “On the 23rd day of May 1933, I became the third child, first daughter, born to Clifford and Isabel Lodwick of English and Scotch ancestry. Raised on three acres of land in suburban Cincinnati, amid Arabian horses, our family lived next to my father’s parents. Most afternoons at teatime, I’d join my grandparents for my special cup of tea. They were a great gift and, along with my mother’s parents, became formative influences in my life — beyond those of my parents and brothers. Because of my grandparents, l’ve always had great respect for those who were older than I. 

“Our parents and grandparents were staunch conservative Presbyterians. Sundays became a day for Sunday school, church and ‘inappropriate’ behavior (cards, movies, etc.) was not accepted or tolerated. This was an era, and I lived in a community, where the boundaries between Protestants and Catholics were quite rigid. My father, in those days, was anti-Catholic, anti-Jewish, anti-Roosevelt, and a pro-Taft Republican. I was not free enough, nor conscious enough, to challenge his perceptions and ideology.

“During high school I was very active in our local youth fellowship and, following in my brothers’ footsteps, had leadership positions in the Presbytery and Synod youth fellowships. For the most part, I could parrot the ‘right’ words of faith but little was clicking in my own mind and heart. With brothers 5 and 8 years older I wasn’t very old before becoming known as ‘Dick’s or Bob’s little sister.’ There were times I milked that for all it was worth, but also many more occasions when I felt it stifling to my own identity.  After high school ended I went off to Hiram College — a small Ohio college loosely related to the Disciples of Christ denomination.”

During her senior year Peg met Bob Jacobs, the man she would marry shortly before graduation. Foregoing a fellowship in mathematics, Peg moved with Bob to New England so her husband could pursue graduate studies at MIT.  They settled in Concord, Mass., where they reared their three daughters, Kathy, Lea and Kim.  Through the next 30 years, Peg studied part time at seminary and found herself drawn more and more into human relations work, eventually becoming a trainer in the church-related New England Training Institute.

Recalled Peg, “I loved these occasions to work on Adult Education Group Process and Personal Growth although they took me away from my family several times a year. During the great decade of the ‘60s, I met Sister Luke Tobin when I was the only Protestant attending a conference at the Grail. Both she and the liturgy made a deep and lasting impression on me. I would tag this event as the beginning of my interest in and connection to Catholic communities.”

At the close of the 1960s, Peg and her family spent two years with the Peace Corps, living in Brazil. When she returned to the States she joined the staff of the United Church of Christ conference in Massachusetts where she developed a resource center for the 300-plus churches in the state.

Wrote Peg, “Though I worked for the United Church of Christ, my spirit home seemed to be Still Point House of Prayer in Albany, N.Y., a small Dominican community. More and more I began to believe that we Protestants threw too much out in the bath water of the reformation.  One person whose writing captured my attention in this period was Elaine Prevallet — particularly the little pamphlet called ‘Interconnections.'”

Peg discovered the retreat centers at Loretto Motherhouse after transferring to the UCC national offices in Cleveland in 1993.  After that, she was a frequent visitor to Loretto Motherhouse.

Encouraged by her Loretto friends, Peg attended the new-member weekend in 1997, and met Loretto folks in Denver when she visited her daughter. While extending her Loretto relationships in other parts of the country, she continued to consider the Motherhouse her special Loretto connection. At the time of her application for co-membership the next year she wrote, “The pace of the national setting of the United Church of Christ is fast, and we are well grounded in the work ethic — perhaps the only addiction we seem to bless. I feel deeply grateful that in these recent years l’ve been able to spend five-seven days three times a year at Loretto, for me, a most holy space. I have found in the Loretto Community a depth of spirit.  I have found persons seeking to be a community of faith in and for a world thirsting for God’s love, justice and peace.  In pursuing the Community’s history, I saw this spirit growing out of a rich history of courageous and determined women living out a vision for their time of faithfulness to Jesus Christ.” 

Peg made her Loretto commitment as a co-member in 1999, moving at that time to spend a year at Cedars of Peace.  In the middle of Peg’s 28 years at Loretto she wrote, “While coming for only one year in 1999, I am still here. During this time I have witnessed the joys, and sorrows of community life both here at the Motherhouse and in the broader Loretto Community. I wish to refresh my present commitment, agreeing once again: 

• To live faithfully in my own life the intent of the Gospel and I Am the Way relevant to all persons of faith grounded in the Great Mystery of Life, often called God.

• To share my gifts, money and talents with the Community. Particularly, at this point in my life, photography, deeper ecological living and the intentional honoring of our present moments.

• To share my United Church of Christ perspectives and experience in our working for justice and peace.

• And, whenever possible, to spend quiet time with the ill, the dying, the lonely in our Infirmary. 

• To deepen my daily discipline of meditation and prayers for the world.” 

Peg added,“There are still occasions when I ask myself, ‘Why am I still here?’ To this question the answer remains, ‘Because it’s where I’m supposed to be.’‘ Co-membership, for this Protestant, remains an important way to live out in community the ecumenical Spirit at the center of all life.”

Peg’s funeral service took place June 30, with a wake preceding June 29, both at Loretto Motherhouse. Her burial in the Nature Preserve Cemetery will take place at a later date. Please keep Peg, her family and all her loved ones in your prayers. May she rest in peace.