Erwin Melvin Jacobs

08/01/1925 - 11/27/2025

Erwin M. Jacobs, age 100, died at his home on November 27, 2025. The cause of death was heart failure.

He was born in Newark, NJ, on August 1, 1925, the fourth son of eight children to Bertha and Samuel Jacobs. He attended Weequahic High, Wake Forest College and the Bowman Gray School of Medicine/Wake Forest. He graduated from medical school in 1947. He interned at Wayne County General Hospital and did residencies in Neurology at the Veterans Hospital, Hines, IL, and Kings County Hospital, Brooklyn, NY. He then did training in Psychiatry at the Institute of Living in Hartford, and served in the Army and Navy during the Korean War. He returned to the Institute of Living and became certified by the American Boards in both Neurology and Psychiatry.

In 1956, he started practice in Poughkeepsie, NY. He was the only neurologist in the Hudson Valley at the time. He started electrodiagnostic laboratories in various hospitals, and did neuroradiologic procedures. He developed a needle for myelography, a cassette changer for angiography, and wrote a neurology text for nurses. He was president of the Dutchess County Medical Society and the Mid-Hudson branch of the American Psychiatric Association. After relocating to Petersburg, VA in 1978, he was active in medical affairs until his move to Alexandria, VA in 2004. He did part-time consulting until 2014.

His interests included playing the piano, sailing, and going to classical music concerts. He always had a joke or humorous anecdote to tell.

He married Joan Poriss of Hartford, CT. They had three sons. Survivors include Jon (Elizabeth and three daughters – Marbury (Taylor and son Liam), Katherine (Sina) and Abigail), Peter (Barbara and son Bryan and daughter Laura) and Benjamin (Hyla and two sons – Zachary and Jared).

He was predeceased by his siblings, Abraham, D.D.S., William, M.D., Arnold, M.D., Jane Sarwin, Anne Brown, Mildred Altschuler, and Evelyn Ortner.

Burial will be private at Mt. Lebanon Cemetery, Iselin, NJ.

Contributions in his memory may be made to the Southern Poverty Law Center, The Humanist Society or Americans United for Separation of Church and State.