Sept. 13—CHELSEA — While the children enjoyed a sunny break Monday, two brothers in their 70s lowered their mother’s ashes into the ground just over the hill at Chelsea Cemetery.
Frank and George Simms both came from thousands of miles away. Frank traveled from Manhattan, halfway across the country, and George from the South of France, halfway around the world.
Their mother, Lois Jeanne Webb Simms, died on December 27, 2023 at the age of 98. She spent most of her life in Stamford, Connecticut, and half of her ashes are buried there next to those of her husband, Frank.
But she was born in Chelsea and her sons said that in her heart, Chelsea was always home.
“Everything about Chelsea was magical to her,” George said. “It’s like ‘The Wizard of Oz,’ like you’re entering the Land of Oz, beautiful on the horizon, this beautiful emerald city. That was Chelsea to her.”
Webb was born on November 19, 1925, in Chelsea. Her neighbor was Sallie Rogers McSpadden, sister of Will Rogers.
George said that when Rogers was between shows, movies or tours, he would go to Chelsea and stay with his sister. Webb and the other kids in Chelsea knew him as “Uncle Will.”
Two of Frank and George’s uncles often let their dairy cows graze in McSpadden’s backyard, where they often caught Rogers performing his rope tricks.
When their mother was 4 or 5 years old, George said, her older sisters gave her a bouquet of flowers and told her to go say “hi” to Uncle Will, who had just returned to town.
“They said, ‘Now, Jeannie, go upstairs and knock on the door, because Uncle Will is there,'” George said. “…The door opened and there stood Will Rogers, and he looked down, and he grabbed her by the waist and gave her a big hug and a kiss and thanked her for the flowers.”
Webb graduated from Chelsea High School in 1941. George said she returned regularly for reunions, even after she moved to Connecticut.
She met her husband at the University of Tulsa, where they sang together in a group called the Gay Robins. After graduation, Frank and George’s father went alone to New York to find a job in the fledgling television industry, and the family soon followed him to live in Stamford.
Frank and George said their mother was a calm, dignified person who loved music. The boys formed a band with their friend Dave Spinner in the 1970s, and they said their mother encouraged them and attended their shows.
Anyone who is aware of 80s pop music has undoubtedly heard the voices of Frank, George and Spinner. That’s because producer Nile Rodgers heard them playing in a club and recruited them as backing vocalists on David Bowie’s album “Let’s Dance.”
George and Frank recalled a memory of when they, their mother, Bowie and Susan Sarandon – a friend of Bowie’s and a friend of the Simms family – were all hanging out in a hotel room while on tour.
Webb also volunteered as a social worker in the Stamford office of Representative Stewart B. McKinney and attended many Republican events.
