Yvonne Seymour Simms

Long-time Mississippi Coast resident Yvonne “Vonnie” E. Simms died on August 27 at age ninety-one. Mrs. Simms settled in Biloxi following World War II with her husband A. C. Simms, a founding partner of the accounting firm Piltz, Simms & Company operating today as Piltz, Williams, LaRosa & Company. She was displaced from her home in Gulf Hills by Hurricane Katrina and had lived in Jackson, Mississippi since that time. Vonnie Simms was born in Mobile, AL to John Martin Seymour and Cassie Hadley Seymour who owned a national door-to-door magazine sales company based in Chicago, IL from the 1920s to the 1950s. She resided in Mobile, AL with her maternal grandmother during the school year and spent summers and holidays with her parents in Chicago, Florida and South Dakota. She was a graduate of Murphy High School, Mobile, AL and attended Stetson University, Deland, FL. At age two, Vonnie sustained a knee injury in a fall down a flight of stairs at a Chicago movie theater and spent most of the next several years in a Chicago hospital. Determined to overcome the lifelong effects of her injury, she became an accomplished tap and ballroom dancer. Vonnie discovered a passion for books at the Mobile Library and remained a voracious reader throughout her life. She also loved playing the piano, singing, and was a talented seamstress. Since she was an only child and lived apart from her parents during the school year, she dreamed of having her own family. She married her childhood sweetheart just as he left to serve in World War II. Her marriage to A. C. Simms lasted for fifty-eight years until the time of his death in 2000. She raised four children with selfless love and devotion. She nudged and encouraged each of them to develop their talents, to stretch their limits and to expand their horizons. She was a bundle of energy in perpetual motion, shuttling her children to music and dance lessons, club meetings, school and church events, sports practices and games. Mrs. Simms was a longtime active member of the First Baptist Church of Biloxi where she sang in the choir, taught Sunday school and Bible school and served on the Building and Grounds Committee during the construction of the O’Neal Education Center. Beginning in the 1960s, she and her husband were active Republicans in Harrison County at a time when it was said that there were so few Republicans that they “could meet in a phone booth”. Vonnie worked in campaign headquarters, telephoned voters, walked door-to-door and served as a poll worker or election official in decades of Republican primaries and general elections. She is survived by children Sheryl (Dean) Foster of Brooklyn, NY, John (Sally) Simms of McLean, VA, Jill (David) Hervey of Jackson, MS, Noel (Kristy) Simms of Jackson, MS and grandchildren Leah Foster, Virginia Simms Milton, John M. Simms, Jr., Sally M. Simms, Cameron Smith, Christian Simms, Hadley Simms and Katherine Simms. A special thanks to Debby Gooch and her staff at The Blake in Ridgeland, MS and Covenant Caregivers for their loving care and attention during Vonnie’s illness. In lieu of flowers the family requests that donations be made to First Baptist Church of Biloxi, 1560 Popps Ferry Road, Biloxi, MS 39532. Visitation is 10:30 a.m. until 12:30 p.m. Wednesday, September 4, 2013, at Bradford-O’Keefe Funeral Home, 675 Howard Avenue, Biloxi. A Funeral service will be held at 12:30 p.m. in the funeral home chapel. Interment will follow in Biloxi National Cemetery. View and sign register book at www.bradfordokeefe.com