"It Was a Good Thing to Do"

"People we knew desperately needed help and Tidewell Hospice came in and provided it. Everyone was so pleased with the care given to their loved ones that we decided to remember Tidewell with a planned gift from our trust. It was a good thing to do!" Judge Charles Reagan Simpson says.

Judge Charles Reagan Simpson and his wife, Ruth Victoria Simpson, settled in Sarasota 20 years ago. They are originally from Illinois where they both had very interesting careers. In 1946 Charles was the youngest person elected to serve in the Illinois Legislature. He met Ruth, who had been head of the Visiting Nurses Association and was with the Services for Crippled Children, at a meeting that was called by the March of Dimes to help the region deal with an outbreak of polio in the mid 1940s. He says it was "Love at first sight! She was so impressive, she knew more than the doctors who were at the meeting." They were married and eventually moved to Washington, D.C.

Charles was appointed to the U.S. Tax Court by President Lyndon Johnson in 1965 and was sworn in at the Rose Garden at the White House by Justice Tom Clark of the U.S. Supreme Court. Ruth was appointed to his secretarial staff. He traveled throughout the country trying cases, and during his career he wrote more than 1,000 opinions.

Charles is an Order of the Coif graduate of the Law School at the University of Illinois. He received his LLM at Harvard and served as a junior member of the Harvard Law School faculty for one year. He also received the Tom Clark Award from the Federal Bar, honoring him as Outstanding Government Attorney.

Ruth and Charles, who lived in the Watergate complex while in D.C., enjoyed the pageantry of living in our nation's capital and the thrill of watching history being made on a daily basis. In their free time they have enjoyed traveling extensively throughout Europe.

With Ruth approaching her 90th year and Charles in his mid-80s, they believe that their traveling days are over and now enjoy watching the Travel Channel on TV as they recall the wonderful memories of their many trips.

When it became time to prepare their estate plan, the Simpsons had their attorney draw up a revocable trust. "We have no children," Charles says. "We have a nephew who has been taking very good care of us, and we have remembered him, but there's more money there. We researched several charities and have included them in our estate plan. We were truly touched by our tour of the Tidewell Hospice House in Sarasota, and know that our gift to Tidewell Hospice will help Tidewell continue to provide the finest care to those who are faced with life-limiting illness."