Ralph Adolphus Simmons and Dorothy Elizabeth Rhode

Ralph Adolphus Simmons, my father, was born in l898 to Rose Ellen Jones Simmons, who was past 40 years old, at the time. His father, William Henry Simmons, farmed about 120 acres in west central Indiana. That was a small acreage compared to my mother's family farm, but William Henry was a frugal farmer and made the most of the land. He had a wonderful orchard and he shipped numerous barrels of prime apples by train every year to the markets in Chicago. He was also a breeder of Shire draft horses and won many ribbons and silver cups. He owned a black mare maned Black Minnie that was shown all over the mid-west and was never beaten. He also owned an imported English stallion named Right Sort who had a great reputation for producing fine colts. My Dad was the youngest of four boys and two girls. They were a hard working, strict family. They were not demonstrative. They never hugged or kissed or expressed their affection for one another. My Dad was devoted to his mother and she lived to be eighty years old, but he tearfully expressed to me at her funeral that he never understood his father. As a child, Ralph was a tow-headed boy who worked hard on the farm, but his real love was school. He had the same teacher from first to eighth grade in a one-room school house near his home. He adored this young teacher and he always got top grades. He was proud of the suede-covered book of poetry he had won for having the highest grade average when he left eight grade. The last time he visited me, he brought that book downstairs in his tote bag to take back home. Mom had given it to me to keep when they went into the nursing home. She slipped it out of his bag and gave it to back to me. I always wished that she had let him keep it. It gave him such pleasure to show people the inscription on the inside page. It said, "Presented to Ralph Simmons on the occasion of his graduation with a 98.9 grade average." He did equally well in the consolidated high school he attended. He loved Latin. He played a little football there and was a lifelong sports fan.

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