Simon Family History & Genealogy

By Charles Isherwood Aug. 26, 2018 Neil Simon, the playwright whose name was synonymous with Broadway comedy and commercial success in the theater for decades, and who helped redefine popular American humor with an emphasis on the frictions of urban living and the agonizing conflicts of family intimacy, died on Sunday in Manhattan. He was 91. His death, at New York-Presbyterian Hospital, was announced by his publicist, Bill Evans. The cause was complications of pneumonia. Early in his career, Mr. Simon wrote for television greats, including Phil Silvers and Sid Caesar. Later he wrote for the movies, too. But it was as a playwright that he earned his lasting fame, with a long series of expertly tooled laugh machines that kept his name on Broadway marquees virtually nonstop throughout the late 1960s and ’70s. Beginning with the breakthrough hits “Barefoot in the Park” (1963) and “The Odd Couple” (1965) and continuing with popular successes like “Plaza Suite” (1968), “The Prisoner of Second Avenue” (1971) and “The Sunshine Boys” (1974), Mr. Simon ruled Broadway when Broadway was still worth ruling. From 1965 to 1980, his plays and musicals racked up more than 9,000 performances, a record not even remotely touched by any other playwright of the era. In 1966 alone, he had four Broadway shows running simultaneously. He also owned a Broadway theater for a spell in the 1960s, the Eugene O’Neill, and in 1983 had a different Broadway theater named after him, a rare accolade for a living playwright. For all their popularity with audiences, Mr. Simon’s great successes in the first years of his fame rarely earned wide critical acclaim, and Broadway revivals of “The Odd Couple” in 2005 and “Barefoot in the Park” in 2006 did little to change the general view that his early work was most notable for its surefire conceits and snappy punch lines. In the introduction to one of his play collections, Mr. Simon quoted the critic Clive Barnes as once writing, “Neil Simon is destined to remain rich, successful and underrated.” But Mr. Simon gained a firmer purchase on critical respect in the 1980s with his darker-hued semi-autobiographical trilogy, “Brighton Beach Memoirs” (1983), “Biloxi Blues” (1985) and “Broadway Bound” (1986). These comedy-dramas were admired for the way they explored the tangle of love, anger and desperation that bound together — and drove apart — a Jewish working-class family, as viewed from the perspective of the youngest son, a restless wisecracker with an eye on showbiz fame. Mr. Simon’s military experience inspired “Biloxi Blues,” a 1985 play with Matthew Broderick and Alan Ruck. It was the second in the trilogy that included “Brighton Beach Memoirs” (1983), and “Broadway Bound” (1986). “The writer at last begins to examine himself honestly, without compromises,” Frank Rich wrote of “Biloxi Blues” in The New York Times, “and the result is his most persuasively serious effort to date — not to mention his funniest play since the golden age” of his first decade. In 1991, Mr. Simon won a Tony Award as well as the ultimate American playwriting award, the Pulitzer Prize, for “Lost in Yonkers,” another autobiographical comedy, this one about a fiercely withholding mother and her emotionally and intellectually underdeveloped daughter. It was also his last major success on Broadway. Mr. Simon and Woody Allen, who both worked in the 1950s writing for Mr. Caesar (along with Mel Brooks, Larry Gelbart and Carl Reiner, among others), were probably equally significant in shaping the currents of American comedy in the 1960s and ’70s, although their styles, their favored mediums and the critical reception of their work diverged mightily. Mr. Simon was the populist whose accessible, joke-packed plays about the anxieties of everyday characters could tickle funny bones in theaters across the country as well as in 1,200-seat Broadway houses. Mr. Allen was the darling of the urban art-house cinema and the critical classes who created comedy from the minutiae of his own angst. But together they helped make the comedy of urban neurosis — distinctly Jewish-inflected — as American as the homespun humor of “Leave It to Beaver.” Mr. Simon’s early plays, often centered on an antagonistic couple of one kind or another wielding cutting one-liners in a New York apartment, helped set the template for the explosion of sitcoms on network television in the 1970s. (The long-running television show based on his “Odd Couple” was one of the best, although a bum business deal meant that Mr. Simon earned little money from it.) A line can be drawn between the taut plot threads of Mr. Simon’s early comedies — a slob and a neatnik form an irascible all-male marriage in “The Odd Couple,” newlyweds bicker in a new apartment in “Barefoot in the Park,” a laid-off fellow has a meltdown in “The Prisoner of Second Avenue” — and the “nothing”-inspired, kvetching-character-based comedy of the seminal 1990s sitcom “Seinfeld.” Mr. Allen and Mr. Simon, who shared roots in the urban Jewish lower middle classes, were also united by the classic funnyman’s ability to inspire belly laughs by the millions in other people while managing to find the dark clouds hovering insistently over their own fates, however apparently successful they might seem. Mr. Simon once wrote of approaching Mr. Allen in a restaurant when both men were at the height of their success to offer congratulations on Mr. Allen’s “Manhattan.” How was he feeling? “Oh, all right,” Mr. Allen answered. Mr. Simon wrote, “When I saw his dour expression, I saw my own reflected agony.” This, when Mr. Simon himself had two hit shows on Broadway, another play ready for rehearsals and two movies set for production. Agony is at the root of comedy, and for Mr. Simon it was the agony of an unhappy Depression-era childhood that inspired much of his finest work. And it was the agony of living in Los Angeles that drove his determination to break free from the grind of cranking out jokes for Jerry Lewis on television and make his own name. As he wrote in his 1996 autobiography, “Rewrites” (the first of two volumes), the plush comforts of Hollywood living might extend your life span, but “the catch was when you eventually did die, it surely wouldn’t be from laughing.”

Armella (Simon) Palmer of Clinton Twp, Macomb County, Michigan USA was born on February 11, 1902 in Emmett, St. Clair County. Armella Palmer was married to John Palmer, and died at age 77 years old on June 6, 1979 in Clinton Township, Macomb County.

I loved my father! I wish I had more time with him. I know he is watching down on me and his granddaughters!

Conrad is the son of Andrew Simon and Annna Maria Glabb. He came over from Germany with his parents, brothers and sisters and first came to New York, then through Illinois, before finally settling in the St. Kilian, Wisconsin area. He first met and married a wonderful lady Catherine Muehr . Together they had 8 children. She died in childbirth. He then married a lovely woman Catherine Steffen . Together they had 13 children. Sadly, Conrad did not live to see any of his children married, and left his youngest one at the age of 3 years. Father of Clara , Frank , Herman , John , Mathilda , Ida , Anna (Sr. Luciana), Linus, Elizabeth (Sr. Theodora), Thekla Eisenbacher, Barbara Hochhaus-Fellenz , Kilian and Andrew, Mary Mathilda, Francisca, Catherine, and Benno who are believed to be buried in St. Kilian, Wisconsin, but their tombstones have not been found.

Herman Simon was born on August 23, 1881. Family, friend, or fan, this family history biography is for you to remember Herman Simon.

Lakisha Mackenzie (Renee) Simon of Oakland, California United States was born on July 17, 1987 in San Francisco. Family, friend, or fan, this family history biography is for you to remember Lakisha Simon.

Marion Hester (Burns) Simon of Silliman Cove Road, in Maryland, Otsego County, New York USA was born on October 16, 1913 at Dean Street, in Nichols, Tioga County, and died at age 95 years old on December 7, 2008 in Oneonta, Otsego County. Marion Simon was buried circa January 24, 2009 at Nichols National Cemetery in Nichols, Tioga County.

Andrea C Simon of TX was born circa 1977. Andrea Simon was married to Cody J. Simon on August 1, 2009 in Jefferson County, TX. Family, friend, or fan, this family history biography is for you to remember Andrea C. (Bott) Simon.

Family, friend, or fan, this family history biography is for you to remember Katherine L. (Simon) Linss.

Herman Simon was born on August 4, 1916, and died at age 57 years old in September 1973. Family, friend, or fan, this family history biography is for you to remember Herman Simon.

Ellen (Simon) Price of Lamar, Darlington County, South Carolina was born circa July 3, 1942 in Lamar, and died at age 67 years old circa November 21, 2009 in Lamar. Ellen Price was buried circa November 28, 2009.

Milton Simon of 263 Arlington Drive, in Amery, Polk County, Wis USA was born on May 2, 1910, and died at age 78 years old on February 9, 1989. Milton Simon was buried in Amery.

Johnny Simon was born in Eudora, Chicot County, Arkansas United States to Annie Mae Brown, and has siblings Michael Lee Stewart, Ricky Earl Austin, Felisha Brown, and Frederick Brown. Family, friend, or fan, this family history biography is for you to remember Johnny Simon.

Hazel Rette Simon of Sharonville, Hamilton Co. County, Ohio USA was born on December 8, 1897 to John Clifford Simon and Nettie May Hannah. She had a sister Mildred Lydia Simon. Hazel Simon died at age 83 years old on March 6, 1981, and was buried on March 9, 1981 at West Chester Cemetery in West Chester, Butler County.

Amelia Ottilia (Simon) Bartel was in a relationship with August William Bartel, and has a child Reinhold Henry Bartel. Family, friend, or fan, this family history biography is for you to remember Amelia Ottilia (Simon) Bartel.

Noreen Simon was born on December 8, 1919 at County Mayo, Ireland in Ireland, and died at age 81 years old on December 20, 2000 in Broward County, Florida United States. Family, friend, or fan, this family history biography is for you to remember Noreen Simon.

Gerard J Simon of Venice, Sarasota County, FL was born on June 4, 1910, and died at age 94 years old on September 7, 2004.

Irving Simon of Detroit, Wayne County, Michigan was born on November 15, 1896, and died at age 70 years old in July 1967.

Linda Simon of Waterford, Stanislaus County, California was born on October 9, 1944, and died at age 63 years old on August 21, 2008.

Tracy Lynn Simon of Berlin, Coos County, NH was born on March 24, 1971, and died at age 34 years old on July 15, 2005.