Simmons/Banta photograph collection
Finding aid created by Sonoma State University Library staff using RecordEXPRESS
Sonoma State University Library
2021
Special Collections
1801 E. Cotati Avenue
Rohnert Park, California 94928
(707) 664-4152
specialcollections@sonoma.edu
http://library.sonoma.edu/specialcollections/
Title: Simmons/Banta photograph collection
Dates: ca. 1895 -1950
Collection Number: Consult repository.
Creator/Collector:
Extent: 3 boxes
Repository:
Sonoma State University Library
Rohnert Park, California 94928
Abstract: The collection is comprised of approximately 120 photographs depicting members of the Simmons family of Sonoma and Riverside
counties and the Banta family of Riverside County, California. The photographs were first donated to the San Diego Genealogical
Society by the estate of Edna Banta Munford. The Society then donated them to Sonoma State University Library. Other surnames
included in the collection are Dodge, Munford, Phinney, Harve, and Wyatt.
Language of Material: English
Collection is open for research by appointment.
The library can only claim physical ownership of the collection. Users are responsible for satisfying any claimants of literary
property.
Simmons/Banta photograph collection. Sonoma State University Library
Biography/Administrative History
Lloyd S. Simmons (1871-1955) and his wife Mabel Clara [Greeley] were married in 1894. Mabel’s father, George Greeley, was
a second cousin of the famed editor Horace Greeley.
Lloyd’s parents Samuel B. Simmons and Lucetta [Moon] Simmons lived in Kansas, where Lloyd was born in 1871. In 1883, Samuel
and Lucetta brought the family overland to California, settling in the Los Angeles area.
Lloyd went to the Woodbury Business College in Los Angeles and then studied pharmacy. He later operated pharmacies in Chico
and Oakland. By 1903 Lloyd had moved his family to Sonoma County, where he set up the town of Sonoma’s first pharmacy; much
of his stock was destroyed when the 1906 earthquake shook the bottles off the shelves. Lloyd spent the remainder of his career
as a druggist, running a popular drugstore in the town of Sonoma. He died in 1955, aged 83, but the pharmacy at 29 East Napa
Street remained in operation until 1986. The collection includes two photographs of the interior of Lloyd Simmons’ store.
Lloyd and Mabel Simmons had two children: Gladys, born in 1896, and Ellis, born in 1905. Gladys worked in the drugstore. She
married Neil E. Dodge, who worked in the Simmons drugstore and also owned a ranch near Sonoma. Their children were Mabelle
E., Edna H. and Gladys Dodge.
Most of the rest of the Simmons family continued to live in southern California. Lloyd’s sister Leona May Simmons married
Charles Banta and moved to Riverside, where their children Edna, Claude and Lloyd were born.
Edna Banta, born in Riverside in 1905, married a Mr. Munford. It was Edna [Banta] Munford who assembled this photograph collection;
her estate donated it to the San Diego Genealogical Society.
Scope and Content of Collection
The collection is comprised of three boxes of photographs and supplementary materials extracted from ring binders.
Sonoma County (Calif.) -- Pharmacies.
Munford, Edna Banta, 1905-1989.
Banta family.
Simmons family.
Wyatt family.
Dodge family.
Phinney family.
Harve family.
Munford family.
Sonoma County (Calif.) -- History.
Riverside County (Calif.)
Riverside Mission Inn (Calif.)
Pharmacists.