Pauline Simpson

Pauline Simpson:  November 13, 1928, to July 15,2013   Dorothy Pauline Simpson of rural Wyandotte, Oklahoma, passed away at 12:05 PM on Monday, July 15, 2013, at Mercy Hospital in Joplin, Missouri, from complications following a heart catheterization/stent procedure.  She was 84.  Mrs. Simpson was born in Stilwell, Oklahoma, on November 13, 1928, to Jim Campbell and Josie (Harrison) Campbell, the forth of ten children, two of whom survive: Ann Ryan of Copan, Oklahoma, and Stella “PeeWee” Campbell of Wyandotte.  Pauline is also survived by a daughter, Annie Stewart and her husband, Michael; two sons, David Simpson and wife Debbie and Benny Simpson and wife Linda, all of rural Wyandotte, Oklahoma, five grandsons, four great-grandchildren, and a host of nieces, nephews, and friends.  She was preceded in death by her parents, her husband Jake W. Simpson, seven siblings, and a special friend, W.P. “Bill” Robertson.  Pauline graduated from the eighth grade during the depression years but, like a lot of her generation, was unable to attend high school.  During her teen years she worked as a maid for the Robinson family in Miami, Oklahoma, and, at the end of World War II, married Jake W. Simpson, a returning war veteran, on September 24, 1945.  Jake and Polly settled on six acres north of Wyandotte and immediately began contributing to the now famous “baby boom”.  She worked as a farm-wife and Mother until Jake’s passing in 1973, when she went back into the workforce as a housekeeper at the Miami Baptist Hospital in Miami, Oklahoma.  From this point, she was able to earn her GED and eventually became supervisor of their Central Services Department, an accomplishment for which both she and her family were very proud.  After working for both St. Johns and Oak Hill Hospitals in Joplin, she retired for good in the early 90s to pursue her interests in gardening, cooking/canning, yard-sale-ing, and doll collecting. Pauline was an active member of Eastside Baptist Church, where she could be found virtually every Sunday holding down her place on the back pew.  She always said you had to get there pretty early to get the back seat.  Polly was saved as a teenager and, over the years, had served the Lord as a Vacation Bible School worker, Sunday School/Youth teacher, choir member, church clerk, and faithful member at Eastside, 2nd Baptist Miami, and 1st Baptist Wyandotte. She’d be the first to tell you that there had been times when she hadn’t been as active as she needed to be but, in each case, eventually heeded the Lord’s call to come back to his service.  She loved the folks at Eastside and was feisty to the end, telling a new pastor just last week, with tongue-in-cheek, that he’d better “straighten up” if he was going to “work for us”. Pauline will be missed, but we will all have those “Precious Memories” to savor as we think back about the times we spent with her either down at the churchhouse, in the workplace, at one of her yard sales, cooking over an open campfire, or just sittin’ on the back porch drinking a cup of coffee. ‘Till we meet again…. Funeral services under the direction of Campbell-Biddlecome Funeral Home was held at 10:00 AM, July 17, 2013 at the Eastside Baptist Church with John Crowley officiating. Burial was in the Wyandotte Cemetery with grandsons and nephews served as pallbearers.