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Hello. I am researching a resourceful woman who arrived in Seattle, Washington in 1906 and began a very successful real estate business called the Corinne Simpson Company. She styled herself "Mrs. Corinne Simpson". She was born Susan Corinne McKernan, probably in Kentucky, grew up in Kansas and St. Louis, Missouri. Her mother, Mary Elizabeth McKernan (1841-1920?) seems to have accompanied her to Seattle and lived with her until she died. Her father was Lawrence W. McKernan, who died in Kansas in 1885. She had four brothers, three of whom survived her when she died in 1928: Charles A. McKernan of Detroit, Michigan in 1928 (her older brother), Joseph M. McKernan of St. Louis in 1928, and her youngest surviving brother John W. McKernan who came to Seattle in about 1920, went to work for his sister's company, and became president of the company when she died. Mrs. Simpson married George Washington Wilson in 1911, and the company name changed to the Corinne Simpson-Wilson Company then. Together, Mr. and Mrs. Wilson built a very classy apartment hotel in 1923 called the Wilsonian Apartment Hotel, which survives, in Seattle's University District. Mrs. Simpson-Wilson, as she always styled herself after the marriage, was extremely successful as a real estate businesswoman.
I simply cannot figure out who "Simpson" was. She never indicated that she was a widow (although her mother did) or that she was divorced or who Mr. Simpson might have been. I've begun to wonder if "Simpson" was merely a nom-de-guerre in 1906 to allow her to go into business on her own!
I'd be grateful for any information or suggestions that might shed light on this question. One of the stories told about Mrs. Corinne Simpson was that she came to the northwet from Detroit, which was where her older brother may have been living at the time (1905-6). Perhaps, if there was a Mr. Simpson, he was from Detroit? Or perhaps St. Louis?
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