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Ray Jacobs Machinery Co.
History
Ray at his grandparents’ summer cottage at Woodhull Lake, North of Detroit, MI.
Samuel Jacobs with a young Ray
Raymond Alan Jacobs was born October 12, 1938 on a warm sunny autumn day, in Detroit, MI to Anne Begun Jacobs and Samuel David Jacobs.
Ray’s maternal grandparents emigrated to the U.S. from the Minsk-Pinsk region of the Republic of Belarus, a constituent republic of the former Soviet Union and his paternal grandparents, Mayer and Sarah Yakobovsky (Jacobs), emigrated to the U.S. from the Donetsk, formerly called Usovka, region of the Ukraine.
Sam D. Jacobs, owned American Tool Supply Company in Detroit during World War II. They supplied new cutting tools to the tool and die industry in Michigan. Around 1950, Sam Jacobs started a new business, American Tool & Steel Company, a steel warehouse in Detroit. The company purchased secondary flat rolled steel from Great Lake Steel Company and the Ford Rouge Steel Mill. In their warehouse, the processed the material into sheets, strips and coils to fill orders by local stamping and fabricating shops.
Pictured Right: 12 year old Ray is ready for the commute with his father and uncle Paul Begun to Ann Arbor, Michigan. There he would attend his first University of Michigan football game against Michigan State University. Guess who won?… “GO BLUE!!” Ray went on to graduate from the University of Michigan’s College of Engineering in 1961 with a “Bachelor of Science in Engineering” degree.
Ray enjoyed his bachelor days with his new 1967 Jaguar XKE convertible. Picture below Ray cruises in front of his apartment on Covington Street in Palmer Park, Detroit. A year later Ray married Norma Elizabeth Lopez of Mexico City and his hardworking married life began.
Ray’s father Sam is shown right shaking hands with Hubert Humphrey, the Vice President of the United States, at a ceremony in Washington, D.C. in the late 1960’s. To the left of Hubert Humphrey is Max Fisher, a well known Detroit area philanthropist. To the right of Hubert Humphrey is Ray’s mother Anne.
Back to Work! Now a married man with responsibilities, Ray works hard on advertising in his office on Hubble Street in Detroit, 1985.