Joe Simpson

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Joseph Woodward Simpson (born March 30, 1921 in Birmingham; died December 20, 1977 in Birmingham) was an attorney, real estate investor and bookstore owner.

Simpson was the son of James A. Simpson, a state legislator and founding partner in the law firm of Lange, Simpson, Robinson & Somerville. His mother, the former Josephine Woodward Evins, a granddaughter of Joseph Woodward, died during his birth. James Simpson remarried in 1928, to Florence Evans, and had two more sons, Henry and James Evans.

Simpson attended Vanderbilt University, where he met Virginia Ellicott Youmans. He was serving as a Lieutenant in the U.S. Navy Reserve when he married her in Nashville, Tennessee on March 25, 1944. He completed law school at Yale University and joined his father's firm. In the early 1950s he was appointed as a judge for Mountain Brook's Recorders Court.

In the mid-1950s, Simpson spent much of his time and energy on restoring Rosemount, an 1830's Greek Revival-style plantation house in Greene County, which he presented to his wife as an anniversary gift in 1958. In the late 1960s, the Simpsons moved into the former Theodore Swann residence on Redmont Road.

In the 1962 general election Simpson ran unsuccessfully for a seat in the Alabama State House of Representatives on the Republican ticket. After the election he began publishing a weekly newspaper, "The Examiner" with Buck Persons, to carry the Republican message. He also financed the publication of a couple of right-wing books. Over the next several years he shifted left in his politics. He participated in the Birmingham Writer's Workshop as a student and instructor, and was involved, with Virginia, in overseeing a change in the Birmingham Art Association and its association with the Birmingham Museum of Art in 1969. The issue opened a rift between Simpson and his father and half brothers.

In 1974 Simpson opened a bookstore, which he named "Joe", for himself. The store's neon sign was later leased and reused for Rowland and Joyce Scherman's bar of the same name.

On the morning of August 31, 1977 a maid discovered that Virginia had been shot to death. Joseph was out of town. Their son, James II, known as "Popsie", was initially charged with the murder. There was testimony to the effect that he had offered large sums for his mother's death, but those witnesses were discredited in preliminary hearings and the charges were dropped.

In December of the same year, Joe Simpson was hospitalized with a ruptured stomach ulcer, and died in surgery. He is buried at Elmwood Cemetery.

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