Virginia Spottswood Simon

Virginia Spottswood Simon died on October 1, 2025 at the home of her daughter, Toni Spottswood on Roosevelt Island, New York at the age of 105.

Virginia Spottswood Simon was born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1920. She was the first child of Viola Estelle (nee') Booker and the Reverend Stephen Gill Spottswood of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion denomination.

Except for four years in Buffalo, NY, she attended segregated public schools. These were in North Carolina, Indiana, and Washington, DC. She earned a BA at Livingstone College in 1941 and an MA at Wellesley College in 1942.

Shortly after Pearl Harbor she married Walter Augustus Simon, Jr., an artist from Brooklyn, NY. During his 4 ½ years' service in the US Army Corps of Engineers, she worked as secretary of John Wesley Church, the National Church of Zion Methodism, pastored by her father. For two summers she directed its Vacation Bible School. For ten years she also wrote the denomination's church school literature for ages 9-11, incorporating African American and Zion-specific characters into them.

Three children were born to that union: Toni Spottswood Simon, an interior designer; Michael Crichton Simon, a wildlife artist; and Deborah Booker Simon Koster, a portrait artist.

At the war's end she and her husband moved to Greenwich Village, NY where he pursued BA, MA and PhD degrees in Fine Art and Art Education at New York University. He subsequently taught at colleges in Georgia, Virginia, New Jersey, California and Pennsylvania.

Virginia taught English at Central High School in Patterson, NJ until Walter joined the US State Department as a Cultural Affairs Officer. From 1961-1969 they served in postings to Cairo, Egypt; Kabul, Afghanistan; and Colombo, Sri Lanka.

When Walter's illness with kidney disease brought them to Richmond in 1977, she volunteered at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, becoming the first African American member of the Council, a support group in which she served for 18 years. When the Museum organized its Friends of African and African American Art support group, she served five additional years as its secretary.

A freelance writer, Virginia's most substantial works are unpublished. The Nubians, 3500 BC -1400 AD (1992) was inspired by new history of ancient Nubia uncovered by a team of international archeologists while she lived in Cairo. Family experiences during those same years led to Inti Masriya? (Are you Egyptian?); An African American Embassy Wife in 1960s Cairo (2001). Virginia has also written a memoir of her late father, Bishop Stephen Gill Spottswood, Good Measure, Pressed Down, (1998).

Although Virginia had become Unitarian-Universalist in her religious belief by the time she came to Richmond, she attended and supported the Hood Temple AME Zion church, pastored by her brother, the Rev. Stephen Paul Spottswood.

Virginia is survived by a daughter, Toni Spottswood and son-in-law, Gordon L. Davis of Roosevelt Island, NY; a son, Michael Crichton Simon of Henrico, VA; a granddaughter, Alexis Humphries of Baltimore, MD; a grandson, Joshua Humphries of Baltimore, MD; a great-granddaughter, Lilianna Virginia Humphries and numerous nieces, nephews and friends.

In lieu of flowers, please consider a donation to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People or the Southern Poverty Law Center.