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Indiana Genealogical Society, P.O. Box 10507, Fort Wayne, Indiana 46852-0507

Records of Jacob Brothers Funeral Home, Indianapolis (1939-1956)

ABOUT THIS DATABASE: The Jacobs Brothers Funeral Home of Indianapolis, Indiana, was co-founded by the Rev. Plummer D. Jacobs and his younger brother, the Rev. Cary Duval Jacobs. They were natives of Dudley, Wayne County, North Carolina, and sons of Solomon and Elizabeth Jacobs. Plummer was born on May 10, 1897, and first appears in the Indianapolis city directory in 1930. The following year, he is listed as manager of the Lucas B. Willis Funeral Home. Cary was born November 2, 1901, and joined his brother in Indianapolis in the early 1930s. By 1933, the brothers had co-founded Jacobs Brothers Funeral Home at 1207 N. West Street. They later operated the business in two locations in the city at 1239 N. West Street and 2401 Martindale Avenue.

Plummer Jacobs was also a longtime assistant pastor of the Mount Paran Baptist Church in Indianapolis and died in April 1980. His widow, Lavenia B. Jacobs, continued in the funeral business in Indianapolis, most recently as a partner in the Lavenia, Smith & Summers Home for Funerals.

Cary Jacobs was a lawyer as well as a minister and funeral director. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree from Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina, his master’s degree from Columbia University and his law degree from Fordham University in New York City. He married Jessie Keys in 1935. Active in the Marion County Bar Association and numerous civic organizations, he was also an associate minister of the Allen Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church. Following his death on April 21, 1977, his widow, Jessie Keys Jacobs, continued to own and operate the Jacobs Brothers Funeral Home. She was active in civic affairs, being elected to the Indianapolis Board of School Commissioners from 1970 to 1974, and was also the first black woman to run for the state legislature. She died in Indianapolis on September 3, 2007.

This database is a collaborative endeavor of the Indiana Genealogical Society, the Allen County Public Library's Genealogy Center and the Indiana African American Genealogy Group.

NOTE: This database includes digital files of the funeral home records, in Adobe Acrobat (PDF) format. Due to the large size of these files, a high-speed Internet connection is recommended.

This database may be searched in the following ways:

• Fuzzy – will search for that string of characters. Searching for Berry would yield Berry, Berryman, Millberry, etc.
• Exact – will search for that exact text only. Searching for Berry would yield only Berry.
• Soundex – will search for Soundex equivalents. Searching for Berry would yield Berry, Beery, Biery, etc.

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