Theodore F. Simpson

Start with a whiteboard and a marker and map out an ideal life – what goes on the list? Quality time with family, quality time with friends. A successful career. A lot of travel. Personal accomplishments. Adventure. A thousand dinner parties. Time spent just sitting and looking at the trees. In his 84 years, Theodore F. Simpson accomplished it all. Born in 1940 in Albany, and – inexplicably, if you knew him – a graduate of a military academy in 1958, Ted Simpson lived a big and often remarkable life. He collected three undergraduate degrees (but no Master’s degree, as his son might point out); he held 5 patents; he built Heathkit stereo equipment and ham radios; he owned 3 boats and at one point in time a Piper Cherokee airplane. He accidentally ended up in Lancaster, Pennsylvania – it was here that he worked his entire career in one building (working for RCA, then GE, then Thomson Consumer Electronics) and it was also here that he fell in with the Lancaster Ski Club and formed a lifetime of extraordinary friendships. For work and pleasure, he traveled throughout Asia and Europe, he skied all over the East coast and out West, he enjoyed equally an expensive bottle of wine and a can of Schaffer beer, he celebrated Sunday night dinner with close friends nearly every Sunday since 1977. He started an unsuccessful small business, he played the piano both professionally and sometimes very amateurally, he was an expert captain of biggish sailboats and smallish motorboats, he summered on Cape Cod and sailed on the Chesapeake. He disliked squirrels, he terrorized waitresses with his inscrutable sense of humor, he hated traffic lights more than almost anything in the world and worked as hard as he could to change the traffic lights in Manheim Township which led to nearly no change in Manheim Township traffic lights whatsoever. Most importantly, he went 1 for 2 lifetime against two types of cancer and passed away peacefully, accompanied by his wife and son, on October 10th. Though his final two years were marked by extensive health problems, until his very end he aspired only for more of the same simple things he cared most for throughout his life: time to sit on his porch, drinks with his friends, dinner with his wife Carol. You know, the only things that ever really mattered on the whiteboard, to begin with. He is survived by his wife, Carol Sweeney Simpson, his son, Michael Simpson, his daughter-in-law, Justine Pearson, and his granddaughters, Harper and Ainsley Simpson. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the Theodore F. Simpson STEM Education Fund at The Stone Independent School, 480 New Holland Pike Suite 7101, Lancaster PA, 17602. There will be a private Life Celebration held in the future.

Theodore F. Simpson

October 10, 2024