Alfred E. Simms (1874-1963)

Marriage record of Alfred E. Simms and Sarah Burch

Alfred E. Simms was born in Atkins Virginia and married Sarah Burch in 1915 in St Joseph, Missouri. Their daughter Eugenia (Brown) born in Missouri and the family moved from Denver to Lincoln with his niece-in- law  Roberta Burch, in 1933. He was a railroad porter while living in Denver, and so his move to Lincoln was not unusual at that time, when Lincoln was the terminus of the western railway lines.    In 1934 Alfred would have his first major train accident and  suffered a broken foot in a train wreck near Bush Colorado.

Alfred E. Simms Retirement Announcement in the Voice Newspaper.

From 1936-1947  they rented a house for $20/month at 441 North 24^th Street and their  niece in Law,  Roberta Burch  lived with them for a short while.  The family then bought a property and would move one more time to  1947 South Street, where they lived comfortable from 1947-1959. Alfred continued to work as a chair car porter for  Chicago Burlington & Quincy Railroad Company , earning a good salary of  about $1080 and  Sarah also worked as a kitchen helper at the Lincoln University Club.

Alfred was  an active member of  Christ Temple Church, where he was ordained as a deacon in 1946. He enjoyed traveling on church business and also for pleasure,  attending  the 1946 world series games in Boston and took the opportunity to extend it to a fifteen-day trip to travel through New York, Cleveland and Chicago. 

In 1947, Alfred would have another accident, and was injured in a car -train collision at 19^th and R street he survived with minor injuries and was  taken to St Elizabeth hospital with scratches to his body and  minor chest injuries. Two years later  in 1949,  Alfred retired from his  40-year career as a chair car porter  with C.B & Q.