Ernest Raymond Simon, county attorney of Shawnee county, a young man of fine attainments and sterling manhood, whose professional career has been marked by distinguished ability, has made an enviable record thus far on his life's journey. He was born in a log house on a farm in Richland county, Illinois, Jan. 26, 1878, and is of German descent on both the paternal and maternal sides. His father, Peter Simon, who was born in Crawford county, Ohio, Feb. 21, 1846, has made agriculture his life pursuit, but now resides in Topeka. His wife, Eliza Ann (Kimmel) Simon, was born in Warren, Huntington county, Indiana, March 16, 1853, and is a daughter of Jeremiah Snyder Kimmel and wife, Sarah Rebecca Chilcote, both natives of Crawford county, Ohio, the former of whom reached the age of eighty-three years and resided in Richland county, Illinois, at the time of his death. The paternal grandparents of Judge Simon were Andrew and Sarah (Kaufman) Simon, both natives of Ohio.

Ernest Raymond Simon, at the age of six, or in 1884, came to Kansas with his parents and was reared to the age of eighteen on a farm in the northern part of Shawnee county, where his early education was obtained in a Shawnee county country school; later he spent one year in the Topeka Business College, in which he mastered both bookkeeping and stenography, graduating in 1897. Afterward he was employed one year as a stenographer with the Santa Fe Railway Company. He then entered the law office of Garver & Larimer, of Topeka, in which he studied law for two years, and in 1900 was admitted to the bar. For the following two years he was employed as a stenographer in the office of the attorney general, of Kansas, under Attorney General A. A. Godard. For four years following this he served as the private secretary of Chief Justice William A. Johnston, and in the meantime practiced law to some extent on his own account as opportunity offered. In addition to the fine legal training he obtained in the chief justice's office, between the years 1902 and 1906, he completed a full course in the law department of Washburn College, receiving from that college the degree of Bachelor of Laws in 1906, and since that date has been a member of the faculty of the Washburn Law School, a position which he still holds. He is the first graduate of that law school to receive an appointment on its faculty, and during the four years he has been a member of the faculty he has successively been lecturer on torts, real property, evidence, and at present is lecturer on criminal law. On April 5, 1907, he was elected judge of the court of Topeka, was reëlected to that position without opposition in April, 1909, and successfully filled that office until 1910, when he was elected county attorney of Shawnee county, which office he now holds. He has all the time since 1906 also maintained a private law office in the Columbia Building in Topeka, and is now a member of the law firm of Simon & McClure. He is a member of the Shawnee County Bar Association and of the Kansas State Bar Association. He is also a member of the Topeka Commercial and the Jayhawker clubs. Judge Simon is a Republican in politics, and at the age of twenty-one was elected a member of the city Republican central committee. At the age of twenty-three he was elected a member of the Republican county committee and at the same time was elected chairman of the city Republican central committee.

On Oct. 22, 1902, occurred the marriage of Judge Simon to Miss Flora Alice Wilson, of Topeka, but a native of Franklin cuunty. She is a daughter of Henderson L. Wilson, a paper merchant of Topeka. Judge and Mrs. Simon have two sons: Richard, born Aug. 14, 1903, and Philip James, born Sept. 15, 1906. Judge Simon is a Royal Arch and a Scottish Rite Mason, and is also a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, the Modern Woodmen of America, the Improved Order of Red Men and of the Loyal Order of Moose.