School Days
CHERRY TWP — When Rosemary Simmons worked as a teacher at Moniteau High School, she had no idea several of the students there would later become her family.
Jeannette Fleeger, formerly Jeannette Simmons, and her siblings Jane and Bob, got Rosemary as their stepmother some years after graduating, when Jeannette set up a date between Rosemary and their widowed father.
Jeannette had reconnected with Rosemary while providing home health care for Rosemary's mother in Sharon. Rosemary had inquired about her father, and Jeannette relayed the information. Several months afterward the Simmons family was playing cards and Bob was without a partner.
"Dad said, 'You ought to give Rosemary a call,'" said Jeannette, 54, of Cherry Township.
"He knew who she was. My dad's brother and Rosemary were friends," Jeannette said.
"His daughter called at quarter to six on a Saturday night," said the former Rosemary Vincent.
"She asked me if I'd go to dinner with her father."
It was January 1994. Rosemary said yes. Three weeks later she was married.
"I guess the love bug bit us," said Bob Simmons, 78.
Both single for about 14 years, the pair got married spontaneously while on a trip to Myrtle Beach. Bob had invited Rosemary there during their dinner date.
While on the trip, they were listening to a Judds song called "Love Can Build a Bridge" and Rosemary recalls asking, "Is that song talking to you?"
He said it was.
Afterward, the couple built more than a bridge.A 130-acre plot of undeveloped land was cleared to accommodate a house, barn and pasture for an array of animals.Bob had retired a year before meeting Rosemary, and after her retirement in 1997 they continued developing the property, where their animal breeding operations include piebald white-tail deer.Wild mustangs, paints and North American spotted drafts make up their horse breeding endeavors.Beef cattle, peacocks and chickens also inhabit the couple's Katie Black Horse Farm on Harrisville Road, where natural sunlight and family photos distinguish their home's interior."They are happy as two hogs in the mud," Jeannette said.
