Simpson, Edna Oakes (1891–1984)

American congressional representative (January 3, 1959–January 3, 1961). Born on October 26, 1891, in Carrollton, Greene County, Illinois; died on May 15, 1984, in Alton, Illinois; married Sidney E. Simpson (a congressional representative, died 1958).

Edna Oakes Simpson was in her late 60s when her husband Sidney Simpson died in November 1958, during his eighth term as a Republican U.S. congressional representative from Illinois. He had been up for reelection barely a week later, and the Republican committee from Illinois' 20th Congressional District chose Edna Simpson to run in her husband's place. She did not make any public appearances in support of her campaign, but nonetheless swept past the Democratic challenger at the polls and was elected to the House of Representatives later that month.

Simpson served a single term, from January 1959 to January 1961, during which she did not make a single speech on the House floor. She served on the Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs and on the Committee on House Administration. During her term she proposed to include full railroad retirement benefits, in addition to veterans' benefits, for eligible retirees as an amendment to the Railroad Retirement Act. Declining to seek reelection, Simpson left Washington in 1961 to return to her hometown of Carrollton, Illinois, where she lived the rest of her life. She died in May 1984.

sources:

Office of the Historian. Women in Congress, 1917–1990. Commission on the Bicentenary of the U.S. House of Representatives, 1991.

Lisa C. Groshong , freelance writer, Columbia, Missouri