Obituaries

A giant of intellectual inquiry, political opinion and musical talent, Judy Dothard Simmons leaves behind a loving and admiring network of friends in a town where her primary family was her mother.

Simmons died Sunday at Regional Medical Center at age 62. Funeral arrangements from Ervin Funeral Chapel are pending.

A resident of the Northeast more than anywhere else, Simmons nevertheless spent a portion of her youth in the South before moving away to establish a career.

She found herself back in the region, specifically Anniston, in the 1990s to care for her mother, Amanda Dothard Bledsoe. Previously, Simmons’ life had centered on the world of New York publishing and radio, a world where community and the freedom to express herself meant everything. Upon her re-entry to the small-town South, her passion for both remained intact.

“There were just so many ways she added to the community,” said her friend, Marilyn Bradley, a fellow New York transplant.

“Judy was all about the sense of community and the feeling of oneness that was the ultimate spiritual gift,” she said.

One of Simmons’ final contributions to the community, in November 2005, was to assume the directorship of the local branch of a state agency that helps nonprofit agencies help themselves.

“I’m in this job because I want to see these organizations do well,” she told The Star in December of that year.

Simmons’ love of community and language found expression in other areas. In the early 1990s she worked at The Anniston Star, first as a writer and later as a copy editor.

At the Carver Branch Library in Anniston, she enthusiastically lectured children and parents on what hard work and education can do for a young man or young woman.

“She had a fondness for young people and a capacity to express to them that they can be the best they can be,” said Brenda Manning, branch librarian at Carver. “She’s been a friend over the years.”

Portraits of Simmons, as well as her mother, her grandmother and her aunt, Clarissa Pitts — all three educators themselves — hang in a place of honor at the Carver library.

Simmons’ resume also includes authorship of books, essays, poetry and criticisms. She hosted and produced The Judy Simmons Show on New York City radio stations. Right before returning to Anniston around 1991, she was a senior editor at Ms. magazine.

But Simmons will be remembered in another way by thousands of patrons from more than two years’ worth of Sunday brunches at Classic on Noble.

“She was tremendously talented musically. She had a wonderful ear,” said friend Lindie Brown of the Anniston Museum of Natural History. “Every time I see the piano at Classic I’ll think of her.”

Classic owner Cathy Mashburn recalls that Simmons — never the shrinking violet — simply took the opportunity presented by an empty piano at the downtown restaurant. At first she played for her friends who accompanied her after Sunday services at the Church of St. Michael and All Angels, but later she was hired for the performances. Simmons enjoyed jazz and New Orleans-style tunes, said Mashburn, but she could play just about anything.

“She loved it. She felt like she was giving of herself when she played the piano,” said her good friend Emily Seagle.

In addition, said Mashburn, she had a powerful personality that was a draw in itself: “A ‘philosopher’ would describe her best down here. She would sit and talk about things.”

But from Simmons, there were not just ideas, but warmth.

“We all just loved her. She always had something good to say,” said Mashburn. “She was always offering a hug and a word of encouragement.”

But far from being simply a sociable do-gooder, Simmons was “a fighter.” said Seagle.

Sometimes the fight was against injustices of the world outside, but sometimes the fight was within herself, as she suggested in a column from January, 2003: “Forswearing passion in favor of moderation and detachment is a real challenge,” Simmons wrote.

“If she saw something that she thought was wrong,” said Seagle, “she would take on anything and anybody to make it right. She would try to make things the way she thought they should be.”