BARBARA JACOBSON (b.1915; d. 2011) grew up in Rose Valley, PA. She studied piano with Nadia Boulanger in Paris (1931-32), graduated from the Baldwin School in Bryn Mawr in 1933, and earned a bachelor’s degree in set design at Bennington (VT) College. She became a school administrator in 1943 when she joined Gwynedd Friends Meeting and helped establish its preschool. At William Penn Charter School, she served on the Board and became the Clerk (Chair) of the Board from 1964-1975. She also served as a Board member at two Quaker-related schools, Haverford College and George School.
She became the first female Clerk (Chair) of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting following its reunification in 1955. (Between 1827-1955, there were two Philadelphia Yearly Meetings, one Hicksite and one Orthodox.) Barbara was a “distributing trustee” for the Thomas H. and Mary Williams Shoemaker Fund (1967-2002) and its secretary (1987-1992). The Fund supported Quaker organizations in the Philadelphia area. In the 1980’s, she worked with the Quaker United Nations Office (QUNO) in Manhattan. Also politically active, in 1967 she ran as a Republican candidate from Upper Gwynedd and won a seat at the PA Constitutional Convention. With her first husband, Harry Sprogell, she helped establish Foulkeways CCRC and was a board member there from 1972-1985. She was also a founding member of Pennswood Village. At the end of their lives, Barbara and her second husband, Solomon Jacobson, lived at Foulkeways. Barbara lived to be 96 years old.