Rebecca Jane Blair

REBECCA JANE BLAIR, daughter of KATE WALKER and BRYSON PURDY BLAIR, was born October 20, 1918 in Hardin, Big Horn, Montana,⁷¹¹³ and died September 22, 1995 in Morrison, Jefferson, Colorado.¹²⁹⁴⁶

She married (1) STANLEY ALBERT BERKOWITZ on August 6, 1938 in Estes Park, Arapahoe, Colorado.¹⁰⁸¹⁵ He was born June 29, 1917 in Denver, Denver, Colorado,⁴⁵³² and died February 21, 2005.⁴⁵³²

She married (2) SANFORD LAWRENCE SIMONS in 1947.¹²⁹⁴⁶ He was born April 10, 1922 in Brooklyn, Kings, New York,⁷³⁷⁷ and died December 10, 2014 in Littleton, Arapahoe, Colorado.¹⁶⁸

Denver Post, September 30, 1995¹²⁹⁴⁶

Rebecca J. Simons

Morrison homemaker, 76

Rebecca J. Simons of Morrison, a homemaker and fire dispatcher, died Sept 22. at home. She was 76.

A memorial celebration will be at 2 p.m. Oct. 8 at the Inter-Canyon Firehouse, 7939 S. Turkey Creek Road, Morrison.

She was born Rebecca Blair on Oct. 20, 1918, in Hardin, Mont. She graduated from the University of Colorado. In 1947, she married Sanford Simons in Denver.

Mrs. Simons was a member of the 1918 Club and the Democratic Party.

She is survived by her husband; two son, David N., Juneau, Alaska, and Douglas B., Ajo, Ariz.; two daughters, Jane D. Simons, Vadito, N.M., and Darcie G. Boelter, Denver; and a brother, Bryson P. Blair.

Contributions may be made to Inter-Canyon Fire and Rescue, Morrison 90465.

High TImber Times, December 31, 2014¹⁶⁸

Sanford L. Simons - Atomic bomb developer Simons dies at 92

Morrison resident also known for his impish personality

In 1944, Sanford L. Simons had just graduated as a metallurgical engineer when he was drafted by scientists looking for the brightest minds they could find to help create the atom bomb that would go on to win World War II.

"Sandy" Simons was definitely one of the brightest minds. He was also a scamp, with a twinkle in his eye, endless curiosity, and a disregard for authority that got him in trouble.

Plutonium had been invented less than four years earlier, when scientist Glenn Seaborg used a particle accelerator to convert uranium into trace amounts of an entirely new element. Scientists working on the top-secret Manhattan Project didn't manage to create even kilograms of the new plutonium metal until early 1945. Meanwhile, Simons and the other metallurgists working at the laboratory at Los Alamos, N.M., had to figure out the physical properties of plutonium and how to machine it, roll it, mold it, cut it, and chemically alter it so it could be manufactured into parts into for the first atom bomb. That first plutonium bomb was detonated at the Trinity Site in New Mexico in July 1945, setting the stage for atomic bombs to be dropped on Japan just weeks later.

In the course of his work, Simons was exposed to radioactive plutonium on an almost-daily basis. The scientists of Los Alamos knew radioactivity was dangerous and monitored themselves constantly. Simons recalled daily nose swabs to check on how much radioactive material he was breathing, and monthly lab tests of urine and feces. The nose swab readings "were sufficiently low that we didn't get concerned," he told a reporter years later. Today, any plutonium contamination is alarming, and Simons was breathing it daily.

Simons fought off two bouts of cancer. But federal officials refused to compensate him under programs to help soldiers and nuclear weapons workers sickened by radioactivity during service to the country. They said Simons' contamination occurred at Los Alamos when he was a military draftee during the war and continued as a civilian employee after the war, but they could not combine the exposures of those two periods to concede he had received total dosages that were dangerous. Reviewers also somehow missed 90 pages of his exposure records.

Simons' daughter, Darcie Boelter, was still trying to win compensation for her father's illnesses from the federal programs when he succumbed to a third round of cancer, on Dec. 10 in Littleton.

The 5-foot-1 scientist was a 60-year resident of the Denver foothills and known for his intelligence, impish personality, pet ferret, and, in his later years, terrifyingly wild driving on mountain roads.

Simons was born on April 10, 1922, in New York City to Faye and Jack Simons. He graduated from the Rolla School of Mines at the University of Missouri and was immediately drafted into the military at age 22 and sent to Los Alamos to work in a lab so secret that everyone received their mail through P.O. Box 1663 in Santa Fe.

"He fell in love with the American Southwest, and never looked back," Darcie Boelter said. After the war, he moved to Denver and met his future wife, Rebecca.

In 1950, he was working at the University of Denver on top-secret studies for the Air Force when his propensity for being mischievous, and bragging about it, caught up with him. He was arrested for having taken a tiny sample of plutonium in a vial with him when he left Los Alamos in 1946. In the book "Doomsday Men" by P.D. Smith, the diminutive Simons is shown in1 handcuffs, grinning, flanked by two far larger fedora-wearing U.S. marshals. The book says reporters thought he seemed unfazed by his arrest.

"Why did I take it? Well, it seems pretty silly now, but I've always collected mineral samples. I realized almost instantly that I didn't want it, but it was like having a bull by the tail. I couldn't let go!"

Asked how he'd managed to smuggle it out of Los Alamos, he said it had been lying on his desk for some time and he just walked out with it. He simply couldn't resist.

"There was no real check-up on what was taken out of the place at the time," he said, even though the U.S. still had only a tiny amount of plutonium produced at massive cost in the Hanford nuclear reactor. His defense attorney blamed scientific curiosity and pointed to his unblemished record, but Simons was sentenced to 18 months in prison.

Decades later, he still recalled his exploit with glee.

In 1954, Sandy and Rebecca moved their growing family to a cabin just a few feet from South Turkey Creek in the foothills above Morrison. After their home caught fire, they extinguished the flames with buckets of water. And then they realized the area had no fire department, so Simons organized his neighbors to create the all-volunteer Inter-Canyon Fire Department. He built numerous fire trucks for local departments and was instrumental in bringing in women as firefighters, according to Boelter.

He was constantly inventing. He brainstormed a centrifuge that could work in rural clinics in Africa that lacked electricity, and asked friends to try magnets on their aches and tell him if they helped. He explored new developments in science, poring over nano-level photographs with delight. He created prototypes in his home garage, which was filled with a laboratory's worth of metal-working equipment. He had an avid curiosity, and loved to hike, explore, travel the world and meet interesting people. He was always ready to help a neighbor, fix a well, or re-engineer someone's plumbing. For a sick friend, he was there.

As a scientist, he also served as chief of biomedical engineering at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center in Denver and developed a specialty in hematology, and equipment for use with blood.

He designed, built and marketed numerous medical instruments, including one that measured blood clotting. That enabled open-heart surgery, where constant testing was needed to keep patients in precise balance between clotting and bleeding to death.

He also trained numerous hospital technicians to work with heart-lung machines and other blood-related equipment. He also founded his own medical equipment company, Sienco, which continues to manufacture blood testing instruments.

Simons and his wife were active in Democratic politics, serving as precinct caucus chairs for many years.

He is survived by his daughters, Jane Stanley of Vadito, N.M., and Darcie Boelter of Denver; son Douglas Simons of Gila, N.M.; and stepson David Simons of Moline, Ill.

He will be missed by many, many lifelong friends and neighbors, Boelter said.

A memorial is set for 1 p.m. Jan. 10 at Legacy House, 6921 S. Lee Way in Littleton.