By Bill Simons

Early 1950s: The Simons cousins’ club filled the modest Lynn, MA, apartment of my Great-Uncle Max and Great-Aunt Lil. The four sons and three daughters of the late Abraham and Sarah Simons presided. They and their parents had immigrated to America from a shtetl located in what was then Russian Lithuania, part of the Pale of Settlement. In the mid-20th century, most of the Simons lived, worked, socialized and prayed in the same neighborhoods, businesses, venues and synagogues of Greater Lynn. And everyone knew my name. 

Sunday, August 11, 2024, 10:30 am: Approximately 70 Simons – so designated either by descent from Abraham and Sarah or by marriage to one of their descendants – gathered at a family reunion organized by my cousin Steven Berman and hosted by my sister Jo Ann Simons Derr at her suburban Swampscott, MA, home. Two women arrived at the same time as my wife Nancy and I. They did not recognize us nor we them. Nancy and I exchanged introductions with my second cousins Jamie Abrams and Bette Kanner. 

Upon entering Jo Ann’s house, we all donned badges with our own names and those of our parents and grandparents. The passage of time, geographic dispersal, divergent connections to our Jewish and familial roots, and lineage complicated by marriages, remarriages and the emergence of generations far removed from our immigrant saga rendered some of us strangers to each other and the legacy of our ancestors. Yet, the need for connection provided impetus for travel from distant points. 

Almost immediately, reunion attendees connected, first with those they knew, sometimes from decades before, and then with those they never really knew well – or at all. My sister Jo Ann and I number amongst the 11 first cousins whose grandparents were Joe and Bertha Simons, and it was to them I first reached out. For several years, cousin Ken and his sister Susan, the children of Uncle Shel and Aunt Marcia Simons, lived in the same two-family house as did Jo Ann and I, the children of Shep and Elaine Simons. Ken and Susan’s younger brother Michael was born after we moved. A Milwaukee ophthalmologist animated by infectious charm, Ken and I confided to our older second cousin Louis that he was the hero of our youth as he roared up our street on a motorcycle, fitted in a leather jacket, to date our vivacious next-door neighbor, Hilda Newman. Ken and I also reflected upon our mutual admiration for Louis’ immigrant father Max, owner of a Texaco gas station, Torah scholar and a tzaddik of extraordinary kindness. 

For several years, my parents subsequently lived next door to another Simons sibling, Rhoda Berman and her husband, Irv, along with their four children. My Berman first cousins, Andy, Sandy, Peter and Steven, and I exchanged warm greetings. With my cousins, Leslie and Karen, the daughters of Uncle Alan and Aunt Sheila Simons, discussion ensued about the family business they run, a shoe store in Grandpa Joe’s time and now a retail outlet for police, fire and other uniforms. 

My first cousins provided pathways for conversations with their spouses, children and grandchildren. I was eager to hear their stories and to share mine. Given my age, I was able to share details about earlier generations that were hitherto unknown to them. For example, with Avi, a charismatic comer in the Las Vegas entertainment world, I sparked interest in the saga of the departed Charlie Milhendler, who moonlighted as a professional clown. Thinking of several of our line with connections to the entertainment industry, Avi and I both wondered if there was something in our family culture hospitable to shtick. 

Halfway through the reunion, cousin Steven briefly recounted that over the years a number of family members had wished for such an event, a prelude to our gathering. Sister Jo Ann led the family in singing “Happy Birthday” to the oldest attendee, Uncle Alan, who had just turned 88. Cousin-in-law Rabbi Charley Levi recited a prayer in both Hebrew and English, part of which counseled: “[W]e are more than a memory slowly fading into the darkness. With our lives we give life. Something of us can never die…”

Immediately, following the reunion, my son, Joe, and grandsons Isaac, 12, and Dan, 8, joined me at the Temple Beth El cemetery in Peabody. Beth El, founded in Lynn and relocated to Swampscott, merged with Temple Israel to form Congregation Shirat Hayam, Conservative by affiliation and the largest New England synagogue north of Boston. As president of Shirat Hayam, Joe has titular responsibility for the cemetery. Most of the founding American generation of Simons are buried there. 

Joe, Isaac, Dan and I placed stones on all Simons graves. In time, a car pulled up, and two women approached, Jamie and Bette. With the arrival of our rediscovered cousins, shared stories grew more personal. At the graves of her parents, Jamie spoke of her father Marnel (Marnie) Abrams, a tall, handsome, muscular man who found success in the theater, and who died in his early 50s from cancer, leading to his choice of cremation to destroy all vestiges of the cancer and rendering his remains, amidst controversy, the first ashes interred here. Jamie’s mother Selma (Sel) lived as a widow for 40 years, never remarrying or even dating. Outfitted with clippers, Bette trimmed around inscribed ground plates. 

Emotion swept over me as I stood before the gravestone of my grandfather, Joseph Boros Simons, with my son Joseph Brian Simons by my side. Grandpa Joe and his sister, Rose, were the first of our tribe to settle permanently in America. As a shoe factory worker and wrestler, Grandpa Joe saved money to bring his parents and other siblings to the U.S. He changed our surname from Simonovich to Simons and built the family business that still survives. In his youth, Grandpa Joe was a World War I soldier and 50 years later assisted in the capture of “the Boston Strangler.” 

As Joe, Isaac, Dan and I departed the cemetery, a consensus emerged that the Simons family reunion was interesting and significant, providing an enjoyable opportunity to meet relatives. Isaac had the final word, finding the visit with our departed informative, but “solemn.”