How a patriotic spatula became N.J. man's legacy

BRIDGETON -- Jacob Riley Wasserman was in his first week of graduate school at New York University in 2013, fulfilling his dream of being an artist and designer, when he found out he had esophageal cancer.

His parents, Keith and Betsy Wasserman, travelled from Bridgeton to New York to deliver the diagnosis to him and bring him home.

"That summer leading into it he had some difficulty swallowing and went to doctors and they treated him for some more minor type of things -- because when you're 23 years old nobody is looking for esophageal cancer," Keith said.

Jacob died in January after more than two years of cancer treatment, but not before leaving a legacy that can be found in the kitchen and out at the backyard grill.

The Star-Spangled Spatula is a genuine, bona fide, made-in-America utensil shaped like an American flag. It is also now the official spatula of Cumberland County, thanks to a unanimously approved resolution by the Cumberland County Board of Chosen Freeholders in February.

Money raised by spatula sales will go toward cancer research.

Inventor/explorer

Jacob was always an imaginative kid with a sense of humor, according to his parents.

"He was always full of energy," Betsy said. "He always called himself an inventor/explorer. He was always interested in things."

He liked dinosaurs and superheroes. He carried around a sketchpad and made stories about a hero of his own creation -- Super Squirrel -- and had a Super Jacob costume his dad made him.

A portrait of Super Jacob sits on a mantle in the Wasserman living room. Jacob's brother Isaac served as the model.

"He was always drawing and he was always imagining things," Keith said. "It made us all that much more creative because when you're around creativity it inspires creativity."

The Wasserman dining room is filled with other creations by Jacob -- an illustration of Isaac making a snow angel, specially designed shelves and a balancing toy with black spots on it called "The Cow Tipper."

Going away to college

For college, he applied to the prestigious Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) -- famous for its application process, which involves the prospective student drawing a picture of a bicycle.

Characteristic of his sense of humor, Jacob drew a picture of three people riding invisible bikes. His family served as the models for the drawing.

"It was his dream school and I think he was as excited and surprised when he got in as anyone would be because it is one of those reach schools," Keith said. "Nobody is guaranteed."

Jacob thrived at RISD, where he started to focus on furniture design, and even spent a semester in the western Africa country of Ghana.

During his junior year, for a metal class project, he made a barbecue grill inspired by the lunar landing module. He had some metal left over and decided to make a special spatula to go with it.

"They were much more impressed with this," Keith said, holding the Star-Spangled Spatula. "They said look, the grill's OK, but you should do something with the spatula."

Family and friends encouraged Jacob to shop around his spatula and he pitched it to Areaware -- a design company in New York City that specializes in accessories for homes and kitchens.

Jacob made sure that the American flag-shaped spatulas were made in the United States. A Massachusetts knife company that dates back to the 19th century makes the metal version and the vinyl version is made in Chicago.

"You don't want to do the American flag in China," Keith said.

For Jacob, grilling was the quintessential American way to cook food and an American utensil was required.

The diagnosis

The summer before starting at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts for graduate studies in 2012, Jacob was having trouble swallowing. He did some tests and went to school while waiting for the results.

"We got the news and we went up there and told him that there was something serious and we have to fight this thing and come home and work with the doctors," Keith said.

For the next year, Jacob went to the Abramson Cancer Center at the University of Pennsylvania for treatment.

He would joke that the proton therapy was merely an infusion of positive energy and compared himself to the Incredible Hulk, a Marvel superhero that gets his powers from radiation.

During his time back at home, he worked and tinkered on different projects.

In addition to the esophageal cancer, doctors also found metastasis in his liver.

"He was not a bedridden person," Keith recalled. "Throughout most of this it would be hard to tell he was fighting a disease. Most of the time if you saw him -- especially if you didn't know him -- he did well through all of it."

Jacob returned to school for a year, but had to take another year off.

After his diagnosis, he started Flip4Cancer where sales of the Star-Spangled Spatula would go toward cancer research at Abramson Cancer Center.

Jacob died on Jan. 26 at the age of 25. When his college friends came to visit for the funeral, they hid little dinosaur figures in the dining room for the family to find -- a green triceratops sit on the illustration of Isaac making a snow angel and an orange ouranosaurus lumbers on a shelf that Jacob designed.

As far as legacies go, the Star-Spangled Spatula is characteristically Jacob -- simple yet creative, useful yet with a sense of humor and one-of-a-kind. It can be found in restaurants and gift shops across the world.

His family was able to see it named the official spatula of Cumberland County and it continues to raise money for cancer research.

Don E. Woods may be reached at dwoods@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @donewoods1. Find the South Jersey Times on Facebook.

If you purchase a product or register for an account through a link on our site, we may receive compensation. By using this site, you consent to our User Agreement and agree that your clicks, interactions, and personal information may be collected, recorded, and/or stored by us and social media and other third-party partners in accordance with our Privacy Policy.