Jake and Mary Jacobs celebrated their lovely marriage of 70 years this year in spite of overcoming many obstacles.
Jake was one of the few black men in the city where he and Mary, a White woman, lived in 1940s Britain. Mary could have easily left, but she had found love and was willing to go against her father’s wishes in order to be with her beloved.
When I told my father I was going to marry Jake, he responded, “You won’t step foot in this house again if you marry that man.”.
They initially met at the same technical college where Mary was taking typing and shorthand classes during the war, and Jake had just finished his Air Force training when he immigrated from Trinidad.
Mary struck up a conversation with Jake, who was at the time a resident of Lancashire. Jake’s understanding of Shakespeare wowed Mary. He and his companion extended an invitation to Mary and her friend to go on a picnic with them. Nonetheless, a passing driver noticed them and let Mary’s father know about them because she was disturbed to see two English women chatting with black boys. Mary was forbidden from visiting her father again. After Jake returned to Trinidad, they continued to correspond via letters, and a few years later, Jake moved to the United Kingdom in search of a better-paying job.
When Mary was 19 years old, Jake proposed to her. She acknowledged it, but her family forbade her from telling anyone about it. “When I left, I only had one small piece of luggage.”. Mary was unaware that the idea of her marrying a black man caused the same level of “horror” in society as it did in her father.
We had a terrible time in Birmingham during our first few years of marriage; I cried every day and hardly ate. Due to the fact that no one would rent to a black man, we had no one to talk to and no money. “.
Mary and I found it hard to cross the street because people were always pointing.
The couple was excited about the prospect of starting a family when Mary learned she was expecting. However, Mary gave birth to a stillborn child at the age of eight months. We never had any more children, which broke my heart, but it wasn’t because of the stress I was experiencing, she continued. When Jake started working for the Post Office and Mary started teaching, their lives did get better. Mary eventually became the assistant principal of a British school.
They made new friends, but Mary acknowledged that she felt compelled to tell people that her husband was black before introducing them to him.
She said, “My father passed away when I was 30, and even though we had reconciled by that point, he never approved of Jake.
Jake, 89, and Mary, 84, are currently residing in Solihull, a town south of Birmingham. Their 70th wedding anniversary was recently observed. Jake asserts that he has no regrets and that black youth in the present day are unaware of the conditions that existed for him in 1940s Britain. “I am abused every day.”.
I experienced abuse daily after I arrived in the UK. A man once touched my neck while I was on a bus to see if the dirt would wash off. “I wanted to check,” he said. Additionally, it was not considered safe for a black man to be around all the white girls back then, so you couldn’t work in an office. The couple is still genuinely in love and doesn’t reflect on their marriage in spite of the difficulties, prejudice, and abuse. They have been married for over 70 years and are still going strong.
These two are lovely inspirations because of their love for one another, and I wish them nothing but the happiest of lives together.
