(died 31 Jan. 1964), merchant. Born at Brantford, Ont. Parents: Isaac Simon and his wife Ettie Silverstone. In his early years in business, he worked with his father in the Simon general store on Main Street, Alexandria. On 31 Dec. 1917, George Simon was chosen, by acclamation, mayor of Alexandria for the year 1918. (Glengarry News 4 Jan. 1918) In his role as chairman of the board of health, he signed the notice of 11 Oct. 1918 which closed schools and places of entertainment because of the influenza epidemic, “the prevalence of the illness in Alexandria having assumed alarming proportions.” (GN 18 Oct. 1918) George Simon remained mayor until the end of 1922. In that year, as the official representative of the municipality of Alexandria, he was one of a number of Alexandria people who attended the funeral of Archbishop Gauthier in Ottawa. (GN 27 Jan. 1922) He was succeeded as mayor by J. Albert Laurin, who was mayor during most of the interwar period.

     George Simon continued his father’s general store in Alexandria after the father’s death in 1933. Newspaper advertisements from the second half of the 1930s show that Simon’s General Store, as it was named, sold men’s and women’s clothing and footwear, crockery and household implements, and took farm produce including poultry, butter and eggs in trade. Glengarry general stores at this time, even in Alexandria, the economic capital of the county, normally took farm produce in trade. Simon’s General Store also sold fur coats, took fur coat trade-ins, and offered a service for the remodelling of fur coats.

     Towards the end of 1951, nearly 30 years after his previous period as mayor, he was returned mayor of Alexandria by acclamation for the year 1952. (Glengarry News 30 Nov. 1951) This time, he remained mayor till the end of his life. Altogether, adding together his two periods in the office, he was mayor of Alexandria for more than 17 years. He was, however, outdistanced, though only barely, by Laurin, who was mayor for 18 years. Laurin’s years as mayor were consecutive, as Simon’s were not. In 1953 George Simon’s salary as mayor, increased at the beginning of that year, was $700 per annum. (Glengarry News 16 Jan. 1953) In his second period of mayor, he was much concerned, as were other Alexandria businessmen, with plans to draw manufacturers to establish their factories in the town. He was Man of the Year for Alexandria in 1963. (GN 9 May 1963) On his death, close to the beginning of a mayoral year, the Alexandria Town Council chose Raymond Periard to fill out George Simon’s term of office. (GN 6 & 13 Feb. 1964)

     In Oct. 1950 Simon sold the store business but not the building in which it was located. It is probable that for some years previously he had been gradually withdrawing from the business and letting it “run down” from its former status in the town. In his later years George Simon ran a clothing business on a small scale out of a second-story office on Main Street, Alexandria, just a few steps along the hallway from the dental office of Dr D.D. McIntosh, who had himself been mayor of Alexandria 1941 to 1943. A business letter, dated at Alexandria 25 March 1953, from George Simon to one of his rural customers, reads as follows, “Dear Mr McLeod:- I have your vest, which I am sending to you by Mail, it is $5.75 and I have put it on the other bill. I will be away all week next week, except Thursday and Friday April 2nd and 3rd, if I am not in my office you can find Miss Seger my book keeper, at the Glengarry Motor Sales, or at the Public Utilities Commission building on main street south. Or see Doctor Macintosh and if you want to leave any thing for me, you can give it to him, the dentist in my same office.” Miss Seger mentioned here was one of the daughters of Max Seger, probably Helen.

     Angus H. McDonell said in an interview of 1977 that during the Depression years George Simon was very charitable in giving credit at his store to the poor French-Canadian families of Alexandria, with the result that they all the more readily gave him their electoral support afterwards as mayor. Albert Faubert in an interview of the same year also spoke of George Simon’s charitableness during the Depression. McDonell also said that George Simon when he was mayor had the distribution of Conservative Party patronage and so could provide labouring jobs for party supporters. (Certainly McDonell was referring to Simon’s second period as mayor–to the first, not necessarily.) George Simon was for some years secretary-treasurer of the local Conservative Association. He evidently had an irascible side, at least in his earlier years, for it appears from the post office records of the 1920s that he was sometimes exasperated by unbusinesslike ways at the Alexandria post office, though quick to withdraw his complaints when he had reflected further. He was interested in curling–a favourite recreation of the Alexandria businessmen of his generation. He was unmarried, as was his sister, Mollie Simon, who also lived in Alexandria. The victim of a stroke, suffered on Main Street, Alexandria, George Simon died unexpectedly. He was buried in Montreal, at Mount Royal Jewish Cemetery. Newspaper advertisements show his store being closed for Jewish holy days. The statement, sometimes found, that George Simon was the first Jewish mayor of a Canadian municipality is incorrect. However, it is true that when he became mayor of Alexandria for the first time, Jewish mayors were uncommon. Aaron Horovitz, mayor of Cornwall during various periods from the 1930s to the 1950s, was also Jewish, and had the GC connection of owning a summer cottage at Fraser’s Point on Lake St. Francis.

Glengarry News 6 Feb. 1964 * Ostrom 10, 313 * interviews of present author with Angus H. McDonell and Albert Faubert, both 23 May 1977 * with Alexandria town council, in fine group portrait, GN 12 Dec. 1984 *sketches of Alexandria manufacturing scene during years of second Simon mayoralty: Marin 216, MacGillivray & Ross 548-549, & Rayside chapter two * Horowitz: Senior 407 & index; Fraser (1959) 30 * post office: NAC as cited for Peter A. Ferguson * George Simon visits Hawkesbury with Alexandria curlers, GN 18 Jan. 1924 * attends Conservative conference, GN 7 Oct. 1932 * burglars who broke into Simon store sentenced, GN 21 Feb. 1936 * Mollie Simon gives Valentine Silver Tea, under auspices of the Women’s Association of Alexandria United Church, GN 17 Feb. 1939 * George Simon president of Lawn Bowling Club, GN 19 May 1939 * fire in store, GN 20 July 1945 * on Alexandria delegation to New York to contact a manufacturer possibly interested in establishing plant in Alexandria, GN 3 Feb. 1955 * alarmed letter to editor by George Simon on the Josef-Augstein company’s complaint about labour pool, Alexandria, GN 23 July 1959