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House Commemoration 8015
Introduced by: Representative Czmowski
A LEGISLATIVE COMMEMORATION honoring Alice Simonson of Day County, who is
believed to be the oldest citizen of this state.
WHEREAS, Alice Simonson was born Alice Bakken in McGregor, North Dakota, on January
4, 1918, and moved with her family to Day County, South Dakota, two years later; and
WHEREAS, she married Oscar Simonson on June 11, 1938, and had been married seventy-
five years when he passed away; and
WHEREAS, she has a son and a daughter, as well as two grandchildren and one great -
grandchild; and
WHEREAS, she kept detailed farm records tracking income and expenses for the entire
time she and her husband farmed, and those records are now housed in a library collection
at South Dakota State University and have been digitized for access; and
WHEREAS, she has been celebrated for the quality of her sewing, her hand-stitched quilts,
her gardening, her canning, and her vivid memories of the Dust Bowl years of the 1930s and
the coming of rural electrification;
WHEREAS, she has been a lifetime member of Bergen Lutheran Church in northern Day
County and later became a member of St. John's Lutheran Church in Webster; and
WHEREAS, she served on the original board that built Sun Dial Manor in Bristol;
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT COMMEMORATED, by the One Hundred First Legislature of the
State of South Dakota, that Alice Simonson is believed to be the oldest living South Dakotan,
having spent one hundred six of her one hundred eight years in Day County, where she
continues to reside after more than a century of contributing to her community and serving
as a witness to the history of this state.