The Jacob family had originally been an Ambonese family that had been given extensive landholding interests by the Dutch in the colonial backwater of the Aru Islands. Samuel’s father was the local Patti [Chieftain] on the island of Maikoor and his mother was a former schoolteacher from Ambon. Like his mother, Samuel trained as a teacher in the early 1920s and was appointed to teach at a school at Gorontalo on the island of South Sulawesi. There he met another teacher from a similar stratum of Menadonese society, Annie Maas Dumais.

They were married in June 1928 at the local Methodist church and began a family. Through the 1930’s Samuel taught in a variety of locations before he was called back to the Aru Islands by his mother in 1939. His father had died and, while the position was not inherited, the community assumed that he would return and become Patti.

The Dutch also encouraged this plan with the offer of Dutch citizen status. Samuel, however, believed he could make a better contribution to his community as their teacher rather than leader. He made a request to relocate to the Aru Islands and in 1941 he was posted to the island’s administrative centre, Dobo. In 1941 Dobo was a colonial backwater. It was, however, the site of some international intrigue. The Japanese pearling fleet based in Dobo contained a number of Japanese naval intelligence officers who were disguised as pearlers and who were supplying information back to Tokyo on a variety of issues.

The Jacobs were still in Dobo when the Japanese invaded the East Indies in 1942. The Europeans quickly fled, leaving Indonesians such as Samuel Jacob as the representatives of Dutch authority. The departure of the Dutch brought out simmering tensions within this community. The Muslim community was mostly anti-Dutch and was led by a number of Javanese nationalists who had been banished to Aru in the wake of the 1927 communist revolt. The community’s Christians were mostly pro-Dutch. In June the Muslims staged a revolt in anticipation of the arrival of the Japanese. However, the Christians – led by Jacob – successfully put down the rebellion.

In July 1942 the Allies decided to garrison Dobo and sent a mostly Dutch contingent codenamed Plover Force. All Plover Force did was attract Japanese attention to the Aru Islands. A few weeks after the Dutch arrived, the Japanese, led by one of the former Japanese pearlers, invaded and Jacob was arrested. He managed to escape confinement after an Australian reconnaissance plane panicked the Japanese and, minus eldest son Sam, the Jacobs and their 7 other children escaped with the remnants of Plover Force to Darwin. From there in September 1942, they arrived in Melbourne in the corvette HMAS Warrnambool.

The Dutch Indies Government in exile in Australia took care of the Jacob family and housed them in the Metropole Hotel in Melbourne. Samuel, however, was determined to find a house near the water and he and Annie soon found one in the bayside community of Bonbeach. They rented the bottom floor of a house owned by a retired postal clerk called John O’Keefe.

Samuel began working for the Indies Government doing translation work. His skills soon brought him to the attention of the Netherlands Indies Forces Intelligence Service [NEFIS]. He was trained as an operative and went on active duty on at least one occasion far into enemy territory in Indonesia. In September 1944 he was returning to Australia from New Guinea when the plane he was on crashed near Cairns, killing all on board. The Dutch government granted Annie a pension of £28 per month.

In earlier conversation with John O’Keefe, who had kept a small flat on the second floor of the Bonbeach house, Jacob had asked the Australian to look out for his family. With Samuel’s death O’Keefe took up this responsibility and ‘Uncle Jack’, as he was known to the children, played a growing part in the life of the family.

For his actions at Dobo on the Araoe Islands, Samuel was awarded in 1943 by Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands the Kruis van Verdienste (KV) [Meritorious Cross].  .