Lucy Simmons, daughter of George Edward & Emily (Pipkin) Simmons, was raised on the farm near Macon, MO where she was born, July 25, 1884.  She was one of a family of five children, including Amy, her twin.  She died July 28, 1968 in a La Plata, MO nursing home and was buried at Oakwood Cemetery, Macon.
Lucy began teaching after graduating from Macon High School and though we do not have a chronology of her career, we do know that she taught in the high schools at Macon, Callao & Paris, MO.  She entered the University of Missouri around 1912 and in 1918, at the age of 34, earned both a Bachelor of Arts and a Bachelor of Science in Education.  That fall, she joined the faculty of the First District Normal School (later Northeast Missouri State Teachers College, now Truman State University) as Associate Professor of History.
Miss Simmons remained at Northeast the rest of her active career, serving several times as acting head of the Department of Social Science and finally being named to the position in 1943.
She also continued her own education, earning a Master of Arts at the University of Chicago in 1922 and attending summer sessions at several universities over the years.  She earned her PhD in history at the University of Colorado in 1953, two years before she retired with emeritus status at the end of the summer 1955 quarter.