Ann and Al Simpson were each other’s ‘greatest champions’

Several photographs accompanied articles about the death of Ann Simpson last week that aptly illustrated the love between her and her husband of 70 years, the late U.S. Sen. Al Simpson. 

That includes one of them smooching in their later years, with the senator looking like he still couldn’t believe how lucky he was.

I realize that’s probably the sentimental favorite of everyone who knew the couple. But there’s an image of Ann highlighted by WyoFile that’s even more emblematic of her courage and the devotion and love she had for him. Ann was at the senator’s funeral last year, looking elegant as always and beaming with pride that so many people in their lives honored him as he was laid to rest.

I hope Ann realized that she was being honored too, because having each other gave them their best chance at happiness in all their endeavors, including her love of the arts and advocacy for mental health. They were a team that rooted for each other, even in politically taxing times.

I didn’t know Ann well, even after covering Al’s political career for many years. But I do know how much he loved her, because it was evident every time he spoke her name or talked about what she was doing.

In 2011, Al’s press secretary and then chief of staff, Donald Hardy, wrote the appropriately titled “Shooting From the Lip” about his former boss, who could be cranky about the political scene in Washington as being too polarizing and at odds with his life in Wyoming.

Hardy’s book is a great read about a politician who frequently got into trouble for expressing views that were often unflinchingly honest but unpopular. To me, it’s a much better look at the man than the book Simpson wrote about his often combative relationship with the media, “Right in the Old Gazoo.”

But I hadn’t re-read Hardy’s book, even after Al died at age 93 last year. When I wrote a column about my relationship with the politician I admired but also shared some combative times with, I relied on the recollections and articles I’d written. My conclusion was Simpson is a “prime example of precisely what American politics are missing today.”

When I read about Ann’s death at age 94, though, I knew I had to look at Hardy’s book in a new light, because I had forgotten some great anecdotes the author recounted about her influence on Al. I offer a sample with the hope that anyone curious about the life and times of the Simpsons will check it out.

Ann Schroll entered the picture when she and Al were in high school; he in Cody and his future wife in Greybull. She was a tall cheerleader who, like her twin sister Nan, was on the lookout for tall boys.

“Back in high school, we had been on the lookout for the Simpson boys [Al and his brother Pete] at the next basketball tournament,” she told Hardy. “We spotted them, and they spotted us. Unfortunately, they didn’t know how to dance. 

“Right away we ruled them completely off our list,” Ann added.

Al copped to his failure, and listed a few more of them. “We were the ‘zit kings’ of the world,” he recalled. “I was knock-kneed and heavy. I had good hair, though — like Tony Curtis! Ann didn’t mind that, but was unimpressed once she found out I couldn’t dance.”

So Ann knew exactly what she wanted, but she didn’t realize until they started dating at the University of Wyoming that Al would endear himself in ways that earned him a second chance. 

I forgot about this entry, but once I saw “port-a-potty incident” in the index, I had to check it out. It involved the 1986 wedding of their eldest son Bill, in the far reaches of the Cody countryside, hence the need for rented portable toilets.

In the book, Al notes with laughter that Ann discovered the toilets lacked chemical deodorants, prompting behavior that didn’t match her refined image. 

“Ann, in a magnificent pink silk dress, was galloping around the outdoor toilets in her slippers, with this rich, blue deodorant elixir, which, if you spilled it, would probably eat through your epidermis,” Al said. “Quite a sight it was.”

One of the things that endeared me most to what Ann represented in Al’s life was the heavy criticism he received in 1991 for badgering law professor Anita Hill when she told a Senate panel and national TV audience that Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas had allegedly sexually harassed her.

Al was unrelenting in his hostile questioning of Hill. During the hearings, Al referred to Ann as “the most important person and the brightest guiding light” of his life.

But while it might have been easier to “stand by her man,” Ann couldn’t sit back and watch the damage without telling him what she thought.

“He was so defensive during the hearings that I finally said to him, ‘You’ve had such a great reputation here, and now you are destroying it by the way you are behaving. Why don’t you just shut up?’”

Al, Hardy wrote, was stunned: “That’s the first time you’ve ever told me to shut up.”

Ann responded, “Well, you need it.”

Al came to the same realization, but probably only because of Ann’s stinging rebuke. “I have been riding high, a bit too cocky, arrogant, yeah, too smart by half sometimes,” he later admitted at a GOP fundraiser in Cheyenne.

Except for that incident, though, I couldn’t find a single reference where Ann did not stick up for her husband, no matter how much he was getting beaten up by the press. But she knew where to draw the line.

In Ann’s obituary, she was deservedly praised for her work to promote the arts in Wyoming. She founded the Artmobile more than 30 years ago, bringing some of the art objects in the University of Wyoming’s collections to people statewide. It was named in her honor, and the Ann Simpson Artmobile was an enormous gift to Wyomingites; it won’t stop traveling with her passing.

A mental health advocate, Ann was said to be passionately involved in the Congressional Wives Mental Health Group. She was co-chair of the group and focused on legislative support for mental health issues.

The Simpsons were both highly quotable, and each one said poignant things about the longevity of their marriage and gave advice to couples, especially when they were playing matchmakers. But their daughter, Sue Simpson Gallagher, has a special insight into her parents that she expressed on June 21, 2024, on their 70th wedding anniversary.

“My parents recognize each other’s gifts,” she said. “They are appreciative of what they each bring to the table. They don’t try and be everything to each other either. They know how important it is to have friends but to have each other as their greatest champions.”