Friends and peers remember Winton “Winty” Jacobs as a generous, jolly and polite man, and as a business and civic leader dedicated to his town.
Jacobs, 81, of Damariscotta, a pharmacist and owner at Waltz Pharmacy for more than 50 years, died Nov. 10.
Dean Jacobs, Winty Jacobs’ son and the current president of Waltz Pharmacy, said his father was among the older boys in a family of 12.
At a young age, Winty was expected to help support the family, so the 12-year-old boy moved down the road from the family home in Damariscotta Mills to live and work on a Newcastle dairy farm.
He would stay there, rising early in the morning for chores, walking to school and returning to the farm for more work; until his 1950 graduation from Lincoln Academy.
“This is a guy that started with essentially nothing,” Dean Jacobs said. “I suspect that experience had a major impact on his work ethic.”
Dean Jacobs and his sister, Christie Jacobs, grew up in the pharmacy, where Dean Jacobs remembers watching his father type prescription labels on a typewriter, feed the labels into a machine to wet them and stick the labels onto vials.
The variety and volume of prescription drugs was “miniscule” 50 years ago compared to what it is today, Dean Jacobs said.
Today, he remembers his father as someone who was “fun to be around” and enjoyed making up nicknames for people. He said he received a sympathy card from a former employee, a pharmacist who said the elder Jacobs “always brightened my day.”
“I think that’s a theme you would hear from anyone who knew my father,” Dean Jacobs said.
He said his father, with his deep sense of community and love for the town, represents one of the last of the group of elder businessmen who built the business community in downtown Damariscotta.
“I almost feel like it’s the end of an era with his passing,” he said.
Calvin Dodge met Jacobs at Lincoln Academy in the 1950s, after the older man returned from several years in England with the U.S. Air Force.
Jacobs returned to Lincoln Academy to take a course necessary to gain entrance to pharmacy school, and the two became friends.
In 1961, Jacobs was a member of Calvin and Marjorie Dodge’s wedding party, and the two couples – the Dodges and Jacobs and his wife, Jo-Ann – were members of a group of young newlyweds at Damariscotta Baptist Church.
The couples enjoyed bowling and skiing together and performing in minstrel shows at the church, Dodge said.
Later, Dodge and Jacobs’ sons were in the same Cub Scouts troop. Dodge fondly remembers building a dog sled with the troop and traveling to Camden with Jacobs to race their sled.
Jacobs was in business at this time, and he was generous with his money as well as his time, buying supplies for the Scouts and supporting the troop financially.
As the pharmacist at Waltz Pharmacy, the downtown drug store founded by his father-in-law, Perley Waltz, Jacobs made some reforms when he arrived.
The crowd who gathered at the soda fountain used to smoke cigarettes and cigars, but Jacobs “did away with the tobacco,” Dodge said.
Jacobs had a fondness for good pastries, and Dodge would bring him a particular favorite – cinnamon buns with walnuts and a caramel glaze- from a shop in Gardiner.
Dodge remembers his old friend as a jolly, talkative and straightforward man. “He was right up front,” Dodge said. “When he wanted to say something, he’d tell you.”
The two men remained friends throughout Jacobs’ life. They enjoyed talking about “bygone days” and the many changes taking place in the town, about their school years and how, unlike today’s students, they would walk to school; about deer hunting – Jacobs enjoyed hunting with Jake’s Rangers, a group of local sportsmen – and they would update each other about their sons.
“We have a lot of wonderful memories together,” Dodge said.
Damariscotta Baptist Church Pastor Glen Vaughn said Jacobs had been a member of the church since 1956. “He was always here, every Sunday,” Vaughn said, attending even recently, as long as his health and the health of his wife permitted.
Jacobs probably served on every board and committee at the church in those 50-plus years, Vaughn said. He was a deacon and a member of the board of trustees. He served on the board of People-to-People, a nonprofit clothing exchange with headquarters in the church basement, and as a member of various building committees and clergy search committees.
Vaughn described Jacobs as a caring, compassionate, generous and kind man who would give the pastor “a big hug” after every service.
Jacobs did not limit that giving spirit to fellow humans. The pharmacist always carried treats for any dog he might cross paths with, and Damariscotta’s canine population quickly learned to seek him out.
“I think every dog in town is going to miss him,” Vaughn said.
Away from church, Jacobs was active in several civic and community organizations, including the Damariscotta-Newcastle Rotary Club and the ElderCare board of directors.
He was a longtime member of the Great Salt Bay Sanitary District board of trustees, where, for the last 12 years, he served with fellow Damariscotta trustee John Gallagher.
Gallagher, a local businessman, said he has known Jacobs since the age of 6.
Jacobs was often the “voice of reason” on the board, seeing the district through many changes, from personnel to rates and regulations, Gallagher said.
He brought common sense and good ideas to the board, Gallagher said. He was a gentleman, in business as well as in the rest of his life, and he was “a great representative for the town of Damariscotta.”
Jacobs had a strong commitment to the town manifested not only in his public service, but also in quiet ways, like an anonymous gift to a struggling neighbor.
He was kind to all, and a particular friend to the “down and out,” Gallagher said. “He always had a way of lifting them up and making them feel better and making their lives easier.”
The Jacobs family’s Damariscotta pharmacy closed in March, although the soda fountain and a small store remain open in the same location. The business has few rivals for longevity in the downtown, but one, a neighbor with whom it shares retail space, is the department store Renys.
The Jacobs and Reny families have owned the building together for 20-30 years, since the days of the late Renys founder Robert “R.H.” Reny, said Bob Reny, a son of the founder and vice president of the company.
“Their whole business partnership was based on a handshake,” Reny said.
“That whole generation thought about community first, the town and then their own business, their situation,” Reny said. “We’re all better off for having him a part of the town all these years.”
Visiting hours will be held Friday, Nov. 23 from 4-7 p.m. at Strong-Hancock Funeral Home, 612 Main St., Damariscotta. A celebration of Jacobs’ life will be held Saturday, Nov. 24 at 1 p.m. at the Damariscotta Baptist Church.
