| Birth: | Jun. 30, 1864
Buckeystown
Frederick County
Maryland, USA | | Death: | Feb. 18, 1928
Goldsboro
Wayne County
North Carolina, USA | 
Lee Howard Simmons was born 1864 in Buckeystown, Frederick County in western Maryland, the youngest of 5 known surviving children (3 boys/girls) born to wealthy farmer and mill owner Charles Simpson Simmons and his wife, Elizabeth Gaither Maynard.
He is descended from prominent Marylanders on both sides of his family tree, and early settlers to the western part of that state. He was the paternal grandson of Maj. James Simmons II and his (2nd) wife Sophia Ann Simpson; and the maternal grandson of George Washington Maynard & Ann Poole, all of Frederick County.
Lee was educated in Maryland, and was a creative thinker and tinkerer, and would turn those talents into inventing items, for which he owns several patents, that improved business machinery.
By December 1899, the 35-year old was in North Carolina where he met and married 21-year Lossie Evelyn Barnes of Tarboro, the only child of dentist Elias Dempsey Barnes and Lena Wimberly Baker of that town.
The couple would set up housekeeping in Wilmington, NC where Lee became manager of the INDEPENDENT ICE COMPANY on the corner of 7th and Brunswick Streets. Later, he would start his own company, The Simmons Forced Draft Company of Goldsboro, using one of his patents as the primary competitive edge. After that, he started another business called the Simmons Manufacturing Company.
Lee Howard Simmons & Lossie Barnes would become parents to 8 known surviving children (4 boys/4 girls):
* Howard Simmons [1900 - >1920]
* Lena Evelyn Simmons [1901-1990]
* Dorothy Lee Simmons[1904-1984]
* Lossie Barnes Simmons [1906 - >1920]
* Lee Howard Simmons Jr. [1908-1974]
* Charles Simmons [1911 - >1920]
* Elizabeth Gaither Simmons
[1911-1997]
* William Edward Simmons [1912-1975]
Lee Howard Simmons died in 1928 at age 63, his death certificate listing his occupation as "inventor", which indeed he was. His wife of 29 years survived him another 34 years, passing in 1962 at age 84.
As for his children, no information was found on sons Howard and Charles after 1920. Lee Howard Simmmons, Jr. became a salesman and left NC and removed to New York where he married a New Jersey girl, Frances Isabel Goodell (1908-1997) and had 3 known children. He died in St. Petersburg, Florida at age 66. William Edward Simmons became an insurance agent and married Mary Lamb, and died in Durham, NC at age 62.
Daughter, Lena Evelyn Simmons, never married and lived with her sister Elizabeth Gaither Simmons in Kings Mountain, NC where she married Haywood Eugene Lynch. Dorothy Lee married Joseph F. Bowen, had 2 children, and died in Greenville, NC at age 82. Lossie Barnes Simmons married Thomas Summers in 1930, but no further information was found.
Family links:
Parents:
Charles S Simmons (____ - 1883)
Elizabeth Gaither Maynard Simmons (1828 - 1915)
Spouse:
Lossie Evelyn Barnes Simmons (1878 - 1962)
Children:
Dorothy Lee Simmons Bowen (1902 - 1984)*
William Edward Simmons (1912 - 1975)*
*Calculated relationship
| | | Burial:
Willow Dale Cemetery
Goldsboro
Wayne County
North Carolina, USA |
Created by: pbfries
Record added: Jan 19, 2013
Find A Grave Memorial# 103788343 |
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Cemetery Photo
Added by:
Angela Cromer
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