Maria Luisa Jugo Simpson was born on Born March 3, 1933 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil as the only child of Hector Jose Jugo DuPlatt, Blanca Josefina Lopez Lares.  Her father died when she was very young and she was raised by her Grandmothers large extended family in Brooklyn, NY.  She was a Brooklyn Dodgers fan until 1957, when they departed for LA (two years after they'd won the world series).

Maria studied at St Patrick's academy, a convent boarding school, on Staten Island, whence sprung her life long devotion to the faith and the Blessed Sacrament.  In her later life she discovered EWTN which enabled her to stay connected to the faith.

Active in theatre, both front stage and back, Maria was also an equestrian in her young life.  She moved in the early 1950s to teach horseback riding in Arizona.  She also worked at the University of Arizona College of Mines in the Dean's office where she met a handsome undergraduate engineering student, recently returned from service in Korea.

Maria married Donald Leroy Simpson (a founding member of The Tailings Pond Trio) on September 22, 1956 in Tucson, AZ.  They moved to Ajo, AZ, then Ray, AZ and then Kearny, AZ, where she was known to be an exotic and amazing cook from within the dark little cave of a kitchen.  She also used her editorial skill as an editor for the Copper Basin newspaper and later for the brand new Ministry of the Environment in Toronto. She came from a family of publishers and this was a perfect fit.

Maria was known as the organist at the Catholic church in Ray that was subsequently picked up and moved, stone by stone, to Kearny. She organized all faiths together for Midnight Mass celebrations that were served by choir members from the entire community.  She directed community theatre in almost every town and city in which she lived.  They raised their children in Arizona, Ontario, and Nevada. She played piano, organ, and guitar, and taught her children to sing in harmony. There was never a New Years Eve in her young and middle age that did not include a crowd of people around the piano singing jazz standards and Broadway favorites.

Maria loved to read books and her apartment was lined with shelves that contained hundreds of books.  She enjoyed reading mystery novels, British history, and comedies of manners.

Maria is preceded in death by her parents and her husband of fifty-six years. She is survived by her six children; Donald Simpson, LeslieAnne Simpson Seifert, Jeanmarie Simpson Bishop, Daniel Simpson, Jeffrey Simpson and Scott Simpson, fourteen grandchildren, and eight great grandchildren.