Memorial page for William Huger FitzSimons (1861–1939) and Annie Cain, with portraits of their five children and a 1942 Hendersonville clipping on Reginald FitzSimons
Book 1, Page 487 ·1861–1950
Transcription
Heading (compiler’s pasted-on label, top-left)
William Huger Fitz Simons —
Central genealogical inscription
William Huger Fitz Simons — B. Jan. 8th 1861. D. Sept. 16th 1939. — M — Annie Cain — B. July 21st 1860. D. Aug. 26th 1931.
In a ruled box below, the five children of W. Huger and Annie:
James Cain Fitz Simons — Nov. 16, 1889 William Huger Fitz Simons — Feb. 27, 1893 Samuel Gaillard Fitz Simons — Apr. 21, 1894 Marguerite Fitz Simons — B. Oct. 17th 1896 Reginald Fitz Simons — B. Sept. 4th 1898
Below the box, the marriage of the daughter:
Marguerite Fitz Simons — B. Oct. 17th 1896 — M — Dr. Robert Preston
(1) Anne Preston — M — Alex Worth — B. Sept. 24th 1922 (2) Robert Preston — B. Dec. 15th 1924
Photograph captions
Top-left cabinet card (young man, bow tie):
William Huger Fitz Simons
Top-right oval (woman in lace collar with cross pendant):
Annie Cain — wife of W. H. Fitz Simons
Middle row of three oval portraits, captioned beneath each:
James Cain Fitz Simons William Huger Fitz Simons Samuel Gaillard F. S.
Lower-center half-length portrait of a young woman with upswept hair:
Marguerite Fitz Simons — M — Dr. Robert Preston
Small color snapshot (a white-haired man in dark suit and red tie, seated by a draped window):
Reginald Fitz Simons
Right-margin annotation
A bracketed list at the right edge of the page, beside the newspaper clipping:
Anne Preston — B. Sept. 24th 1922 — m — Alexander Worth ↳ Alexander Walker Worth. B. July 7th 1945 David McAlister Worth. B. [date illegible] Robert Preston Worth. B. April 3rd 1950
Left-margin biographical memorandum (compiler’s hand)
William Huger Fitz Simons — named for his uncle William Huger — was born in the Fitz Simons home on Hasell St. in Chas. S.C. January 8th 1861.
He went to primary school in Spartanburg, S.C. In 1875 his mother moved to Charlotte, N.C. and there he attended the Charlotte Military Institute — as a day scholar. In 1876 they moved to the farm on Mills River — In 1877 he went to Charleston to prepare for entering the Charleston College — “Huger” graduated from Charleston College in 1881 — Deciding to become a Lawyer, he went to N.Y. and entered the law office of Man & Pa[rsons] where he was for some time occupied in mastering Blackstone. Returning to Charleston Mr. Fitz Simons put on the finishing touches in the office of Simonton & Barker and was admitted to the bar in Columbia in 1883.
Later on he went before the Supreme Court of the U.S. and was admitted to practice in all Federal courts of America. For three years he was engaged in practice by himself and in 1886 [formed a] partnership with Barker, Gilliland & Fitz Simons. This firm continued until May 1st 1890 when it was dissolved by mutual consent.
Mr. Fitz Simons and Mr. George Maffett went into partnership in 1892 –
[The biographical narrative breaks off at the bottom edge of the page; if a continuation was once mounted facing this sheet it is not visible in this scan.]
Newspaper clipping (lower right)
HENDERSON MAN STILL WANTS TO FIGHT GERMANS
HENDERSONVILLE, Nov. 18. — (Special) — The World war ended the week that Reginald FitzSimons was ordered to officers training camp but this Henderson county man is finally going to get a crack at the Germans — he has enlisted in the Canadian army.
FitzSimons, a resident of the Flat Rock section and a Charlestonian by ancestry, was under age during the last war and had to sit by and see four brothers and a dozen cousins enter the army. He finally obtained his parents consent to enter the service and was to report to camp the week the Armistice was signed.
Without divulging his plans to friends or relatives, he recently went to Toronto where he was accepted for the Canadian army and is now training at Camp Borden. In spite of his 42 yea[rs] he was accepted when offi[cials] there learned he had trave[lled] all the way from North [Caro]lina to enlist.
AI Notes
A densely composed memorial album page for William Huger FitzSimons and his wife Annie Cain. At the top left, a cabinet-card portrait of the young W. H. FitzSimons is captioned beneath in pencilled block capitals. Top right is an oval bust portrait of Annie Cain in a lace collar with a long cross pendant. Across the centre top, the compiler has inked the parents’ birth and death dates and listed their five children in a hand-drawn box; below the box she records Marguerite’s marriage to Dr. Robert Preston and their two children (Anne Preston, b. Sept. 24, 1922, who married Alexander Worth; and Robert Preston, b. Dec. 15, 1924). The middle row holds three oval portraits of the eldest sons — James Cain, William Huger Jr., and Samuel Gaillard (the WWI combat aviator). Below sits a half-length portrait of Marguerite FitzSimons captioned with her marriage to Dr. Robert Preston, beside a small colour snapshot of Reginald FitzSimons in later life. To the right, a Hendersonville newspaper clipping under the headline ‘Henderson Man Still Wants to Fight Germans’ reports Reginald’s 1942 enlistment in the Canadian army at age 42, alongside a marginal annotation listing the three sons of Anne Preston and Alexander Worth (Alexander Walker Worth, David McAlister Worth, Robert Preston Worth). The left margin carries a long biographical narrative of W. Huger FitzSimons’s life and legal career, written in the compiler’s hand. Metadata uses the canonical spelling FitzSimons while the body preserves the compiler’s ‘Fitz Simons’.
The right-hand edge of the clipping is trimmed, clipping a few characters per line; the article is from a Hendersonville paper of November 1942 — the second World War context makes the dating clear, and Reginald, born September 1898, would have been 44 in fall 1942 (the clipping’s “42” is therefore approximate, or the clipping is from late 1940). The Reginald FitzSimons of this notice is the youngest son of W. Huger and Annie Cain FitzSimons whose snapshot is mounted just to the left.