Dr. Jacob Peyton Jr.

Peyton Jacob, Jr., M.D. Of Orinda, passed away on December 26, 2007 at the age of 88 due to congestive heart failure. Born November 3, 1919 in Macon, GA, the fourth child of a college president, Peyton Jacob, Sr. and a kindergarten teacher, Maggie Burkley Jacob. He became interested in psychiatry at an early age. He earned his MD degree from Emory University, and competed a year of residency in psychiatry at University of Michigan before being inducted into the US Army towards the end of WWII. At Camp Lockett near San Diego he met Helena Carolyn Link, a physical therapist in the Army. They married in February 1946. After he competed his residency in psychiatry at University of Michigan in 1949, Dr. and Mrs. Jacob settled in the San Francisco Bay Area, where they raised four children. A highly respected therapist and teacher, he was in private practice in psychiatry and psychoanalysis in Oakland and Berkeley from 1949 until 1995. He trained to become a psychoanalyst at the San Francisco Psychoanalytic Institute, and subsequently became a training analyst at the Institute. He wrote a chapter on the analyst at work in the book "Becoming a Psychoanalyst," edited by Robert S. Wallerstein, MD. He was also on the psychiatric staff at Herrick Hospital in Berkeley. He loved classical music, the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, spending time with his children and grandchildren, and had a great sense of humor, especially enjoying puns and limericks. A prize-winning photographer, he also enjoyed carpentry ,including building furniture as well as a mountain cabin built with the help of his wife and children. Predeceased by his wife Helena L. Jacob (1918-1991), he is survived by four children: Peyton Jacob, III of Lafayette, John Jacob of Nicasio, Bill Jacob of Santa Barbara, Heidi Jacob of Philadelphia, PA; four grandchildren, Michael Jacob, Adam Jacob, Robert Abramovic, Cooper Jacob and a brother Joseph S. Jacob of Ann Arbor, MI. A memorial service is planned for the summer of 2008.