West Union woman remembered for Adams County Auditor’s Office service

Regina Evelyn Jakab’s life stayed close to the people and places that define Adams County. Born in Peebles on Sept. 15, 1942, and later living in West Union, she built her life around family ties, county service and the familiar routes between the two villages.

Jakab died Tuesday, June 2, 2026, at Meadowview Regional Medical Center in Maysville, Kentucky. She was 83. Her work as an administrative assistant for the Adams County Auditor’s Office placed her in one of county government’s most important offices, the place that handles the fiscal side of local life, including payroll, property taxes and records that affect residents across the county.

Adams County describes the auditor as the county’s chief fiscal officer, county payroll officer, tax assessor for real property and manufactured homes, and secretary to several county boards. For Jakab, that meant a career spent helping the office’s daily work move forward for the public, a quiet role that touched far more families than her title suggested.

Her obituary reflects how deeply her family remained rooted in the county. She is survived by her daughter, Jennifer Thompson and Joshua Thompson of West Union; brothers Gary Browning and Danny Browning and Carol Browning, all of Peebles; sisters Deborah Wyatt of Georgia and Teressa Shoemaker and Denver Shoemaker of West Union; and sister-in-law Sheila Browning of Peebles. She also leaves grandchildren Ethan Thompson and Kennedy Thompson of Columbus, Rylee Thompson and Jake Kendall of Winchester, and Jakab Thompson of West Union, along with nieces, nephews and cousins who were part of a wide family circle.

Jakab was preceded in death by her husband, Samuel Johnson, and her brother Larry Browning. Visitation was scheduled for Saturday, June 6, from 10 to 11 a.m. at Wallace-Thompson Funeral Home in Peebles, followed by funeral services at 11 a.m. Burial took place at Locust Grove Cemetery in Peebles, in Franklin Township, Adams County.

Locust Grove Cemetery is listed as Cemetery No. 17 in the Ohio Genealogical Society’s Ohio Cemeteries 1803-2003. Jakab’s story fits a familiar Adams County pattern: a life built through work, church, neighborhood and family connections that stayed anchored in the same communities from one generation to the next.