Gretchen Schmertz Jacob (1928-2001) was the third of Robert Watson and Mildred Floyd Schmertz’s four children. She was born into a Pittsburgh family dedicated to the creative arts. Her parents met in high school and both went on to Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie Mellon University). Her mother became an art teacher and painter whose murals still adorn the chapel of the former convent at Sacred Heart Church in the Shadyside area of Pittsburgh. Her father became a practicing architect and Carnegie Tech professor, who spent all his free time writing and singing folk songs.

The prediction in one of Bob Schmertz's songs proved true for Gretchen, “when we raise our clan on the Carnegie plan, they will go to C.I.T. just like their Dad and his sweetheart who wears the plaid”. Mrs. Jacob was a fine arts graduate of Carnegie Institute of Technology where Andy Warhol was her classmate. According to brother Jack, “Gretchen helped him with his three R's”.

For almost 40 years of her life Mrs. Jacob taught art in Pittsburgh schools. She began her teaching career in the 1950’s. By 1977 she had become the city’s visual arts supervisor and developed the curriculum and faculty for the Pittsburgh High School for the Creative and Performing Arts, where she taught until her retirement in 1996.

Gathering together to make music was a Schmertz family tradition dating back to the mid 19th century in her great grandfather’s Pittsburgh home. Early in life Gretchen began to collect folk songs, taught herself the guitar, and emerged as a first-class folk singer. Her voice is the clear, sweet soprano on two of her father’s music albums. Particularly moving is her 1955 recording of A Christmas Song For Gretchen, which Bob wrote to celebrate the birth of Gretchen’s son, Robert Schmertz Jacob.

Long after her father’s death in 1975, Gretchen was devoted to perpetuating his folk songs. Monongahela Sal was one of the best known of Bob Schmertz’s songs and over the years Gretchen performed that song with Pete Seeger as well as other great singers. In the summer of 2001, in her last public performance, Gretchen sang Monongahela Sal as part of a 175th birthday salute to Stephen Foster.

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