Jacob Donges was born at Drayton, Queensland on 29 September 1889, the twelfth child of the fourteen children of German settlers, Christoph Donges and Ernestine Wilhelmine Donges (nee Dunemann). He married Fredericka Augusta Bruggeman on 22 September 1915. They had four sons and three daughters. The Donges family moved to Glenarbon in 1932 to grow tobacco. Jacob and Fredericka Donges were foundation members of St. Paul's Lutheran churches of Oakey (1928) and Glenarbon (1949). Jacob Donges was actively involved in Lutheran church and was an elder, trustee, lay reader, choir member and secretary for St. Pauls. Jacob Donges was a Labor candidate for the Drayton electorate in 1915, member of Drayton, Oakey and Glenarbon State School committees, member of the Queensland Production Association at Drayton, member of the Queensland State Tobacco Board, wrote for newspapers, was a Justice of the Peace and member of the Toowoomba and District Historical Society. Jacob and Fredericka Donges retired to Toowoomba in 1954. Jacob Donges died on 27 September 1973.