Edgar Attwood Jacobs; Schizophrenia in Family Led to Reforms

Edgar Attwood Jacobs, 86, whose family problems with schizophrenia led to personal tragedy and law reforms. A native of Montreal, Jacobs began an advertising career in Cleveland, managed a grocery store and worked in a delicatessen, where he met his wife of 56 years, Roma. He later started his own bottling company. In 1949, Jacobs moved his family to the more healthful California climate when his baby daughter, Elizabeth, developed asthma. Jacobs became a classified advertising representative for The Times. The daughter and one of Jacobs’ three sons, who died in 1985, both were found to have paranoid schizophrenia. On Oct. 14, 1990, with Jacobs already in a convalescent home, the daughter, taking her young son along, went to the La Canada Flintridge family home and shot and stabbed to death Roma Jacobs, then 78. Another son, Brian, a Long Beach teacher, became a strong advocate for reform of mental health care. He is now president of the Alliance for the Mentally Ill of Long Beach, is active on the Long Beach Board of Health and Human Services and has testified frequently in Sacramento. On Monday in Long Beach of pneumonia.