Our Forgotten But Notable Neighbors: Edward Simons – Violinist, Conductor, and Witness to History

Eighty years ago, on August 6th, 1945, an event took place that stands out as one of the most important events in the annals of the 20th century, if not all of history. One man who lived most of his life in Rockland County was a proverbial fly on the wall of one aspect of that event as it played out.

Ed was a very talented violinist, who expanded his repertoire to include orchestral conducting. Indeed, he conducted the orchestras of a number of Broadway shows including “My Fair Lady” and “Camelot”. Locally, he founded what would become the Rockland Symphony Orchestra in 1952 and four years later the Rockland Conservatory of Music, both of which are still active and thriving. Ed also gave private violin lessons to young Rocklanders. A number of his students became well-known professionals in their own right, one of whom is Alicia Svigals, the original fiddler of the Klezmatics.

Although he passed away in 2018 at the age of 101, Edward Simons is far from forgotten. People who never met or even heard of him are still being influenced by his accomplishments. Ed was one of those individuals who refused to rest on their laurels and believed it his civic duty to improve the quality of life in his community.

In 2015, at age 98 and several years after his wife had passed away, Ed was living independently in his home in Pomona. He lived an active life, teaching and conducting, but had given up driving. One of his many activities included playing the violin for the “old people” at the Fountainview Assisted Living facility. All of the “old people” Ed played for were, in fact, younger than he was. The gentleman who normally drove Ed to Fountainview was tied up elsewhere and asked me to take his place. As I was driving Ed, he started telling me about himself.  Somehow the conversation shifted to his experiences during WWII. During the war, Ed served in the Navy, but as a trained classical violinist he was assigned to a string trio consisting of himself, another violinist and a cellist. In the summer of 1945, he found himself on the USS Augusta which took then President Harry S. Truman to attend the Potsdam Conference, where he would meet with Josef Stalin and Winston Churchill, leaders of America’s allies The Soviet Union and Great Britain, respectively, to do post-war planning. During the conference, an ultimatum was addressed to Japan, threatening utter destruction of the country unless it surrendered unconditionally.  Japan gave no response, and the conference concluded.

Ed told me that on the way home on August 6th, 1945, he and his fellow trio musicians were performing for President Truman as he was having a meal, when a sailor entered and whispered something into his ear. Truman nodded in acknowledgement, thanked the sailor, and resumed eating. He did not display any outward emotion.    

Later, Ed was in the sailors’ mess when the President announced to the crew words to the effect that he had just  been notified that a bomb of unequaled strength had successfully been dropped on a major Japanese city, and that he hoped that it would convince Japan to capitulate. 

Of course, despite the advantage of 80 years of hindsight, historians, philosophers, diplomats, politicians, and even the man-in-the-street are all still hotly debating whether Truman’s momentous decision to unleash the power of atomic weapons as a means of convincing Japan to surrender unconditionally was, indeed, the right or wrong thing to do. What is certain, however, is that this controversy will continue.

Once Truman gave the command to go ahead with the well-planned attack, it had to be kept secret. As he was eating his meal and being serenaded by the classical trio, he was certainly fully aware that the Enola Gay, an American B-29 bomber, had already taken off from the Pacific Island of Tinian with the task of carrying out the first offensive use of an atomic weapon in human history. Most people, under similar circumstances, would find it impossible to keep cool and maintain total self-control but, according to Ed Simons’ recollection, Commander-in-Chief Truman was stoic, showing no outward emotion that might have indicated to Ed that something historic was taking place.

Three days later on August 9th, another such bomb was dropped on the city of Nagasaki, leading to Japan’s official surrender on September 2nd, 1945. Not long after, Ed, like millions of other servicemen and women, was discharged and went back to civilian life, marrying and raising a family in Rockland County.

In April of 2017, I called him up when I was organizing an event in Orangeburg titled the Commemoration of the 75th Anniversary of the Bataan Death March. I asked him to play a few songs on his violin, and he agreed. Although it was a chilly, windy day and he was already over 100 years old, he got up on the stage and performed beautifully. I introduced him to the audience, describing his experience with Truman and Hiroshima on the USS Augusta, and the crowd of over 1,000 people gave him a rousing ovation.

Following this, I got a call from a researcher at the History Channel, which resulted in the production of a show focusing on Ed, touting him as the world’s oldest active conductor. It included interviews of Ed and his students, as well as a performance of the Rockland Symphony led by him at age 101. The program can still be watched online.

Parenthetically, there is also a full-length biography of Ed entitled My Father Wakes Up Laughing, written by Ed’s daughter Jo Simons.   

Although his physical presence has ended, the joy and beauty that Edward Simons brought Rockland, and the world, lives on. The story that he told me about that moment in history, exactly eighty years ago, provides us a unique perspective into the personality of President Harry Truman, the man who made the world-shattering decision to drop the bomb on Hiroshima.