Eulogy for my first husband

George Stephen Simpson

April 29, 1951 – June 25, 2012

George in 1974 with Galaxy and Sparky

Just yesterday morning they let me know you were gone
Susanne the plans they made put an end to you
I walked out this morning and I wrote down this song
I just can't remember who to send it to
I've seen fire and I've seen rain
I've seen sunny days that I thought would never end
I've seen lonely times when I could not find a friend
But I always thought that I'd see you again

These lyrics have been swimming around in my head since last Wednesday at 4:55 pm when George’s brother Phil called me from Tennessee to tell me that George had passed-- On Lopez Island, one island over from me, all alone.  They found his body two days later.  I worried about his dogs.  When I looked for an obituary I found his name, birth and death dates.  Nothing about him.  So even though we’ve been divorced for over thirty years I am feeling that I should acknowledge him by writing the story of his life as far as I know of it.

George was the first child born to Joe and Ann Simpson on April 29 (The date the Golden Spike was laid) 1951.  He was born into a railroad family and they moved all over the Northwest as his father moved up the corporate ladder.  He lived in Seattle, Spokane, Missoula, Livingston, and eventually Billings.

His brother Phil was born six years after George.  George had been an only child so long he had a hard time adjusting to his younger brother, telling the story of throwing rocks at the nursery window.  George worked summers for what is now Burlington Northern—in Auburn and later in Billings when his parents settled there.

During his High School years they lived near Lincoln Park in Seattle and he went to West Seattle High School, graduating in 1969.  He earned his undergraduate degree graduating Magna Cum Laude in the Honors Program and continued on in Graduate School at Washington State University in Pullman.  He loved Edwardian poets like Robert Browning.  As a graduate student, he taught a course in parapsychology and was immersed one semester in the occult, witchcraft, and Emanuel Swedenborg.

We eloped in June 1975, moved to Seattle, and started working as paralegals in the law offices of my father and Doug Moreland.  As paralegals, we interviewed clients, ran errands, did some bookkeeping.  George and I separated in 1978, but he continued to work for my father for eleven years.  Once he left there, he worked a variety of office jobs and eventually came to work for National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in Fish Inspections.

It was through his work at NOAA that he met his second wife, Barbara Estenson.  Barbara owned land on Lopez and for many years they lived in Seattle during the week and came to the island on weekends with their dogs.  Barbara preceded George in death in October of 2009.  George continued to spend weekends in her home and planned to stay there permanently upon retirement at age 62.  His diabetes and poor general health prevented him from achieving that goal.

I remember George as being smart, witty, funny as hell and always telling a good story.  Most of his stories were about himself and were embellished with each retelling.  Even if I had been there I would not recognize the event after the third or fourth retelling.  George had a tendency to “compartmentalize” his life.  He had his work friends, his relatives, his bar buddies.  He did not share information between these separate groups.  No one got the complete picture of what was happening in his life.  He could make friends with anyone from a bum on the street to a corporate executive.  George admired Charles Bukowski—he identified with down and outers. One critic has described Bukowski's fiction as a "detailed depiction of a certain taboo male fantasy: the uninhibited bachelor, slobby, anti-social, and utterly free".  George was too genteel, generous and generally nice to fit that depiction.  But he had a certain fascination with that world.

 

He liked Elvis Presley, basketball, pinball, and dogs, dogs, dogs.  Not sure what else he gravitated to over the thirty years we’ve been separated.  But these tastes probably remained the same.

My father and I went to visit George at his wife’s place on Lopez in July of 2010.  Although we communicated at Christmas and birthdays and on e-mail, I had no idea that his health had taken a turn for the worse.  I know when we were in college together he doubted he would live until 40, but it almost seems as if he had to prove himself right about dying young.  He will be missed.

  

George with Joe Barreca Sr in July 2010