Cora earned a degree from the University of Illinois and pursued a career in the physical sciences, teaching biology in Paris, Ill., then becoming a botanist for the United States Department of Agriculture, in charge of the Albert Dickinson Seed Laboratory. She changed the direction of her life when she attended classes at the University of Chicago and the New York School of Social Work, where she became a caseworker and a supervisor in Chicago and then in New York City. Miss Jacobs was the director of the Family Welfare Services in Madison, Wisc., and the director of Public Relief in Linn County, Iowa.In 1937 she returned to Sterling to become the executive secretary of the Sterling-Rock Falls Chapter of the American Red Cross. She held this position during the World War II years, retiring in 1952.In 1965 the American Association of University women recognized her, as a scholarship grant was named in her honor.