According to
Karen Abbott, the sisters invented their own biography, which has long been accepted as factual. Independent research has provided more accuracy.
According to the sisters According to their story, Minna and Ada Simms were born outside of
Louisville, Kentucky in 1876 to a wealthy lawyer who had fled to
Kentucky from
Virginia when
Benedict Arnold invaded Virginia in 1781. The two sisters had been to finishing school and had proper social debuts. When Minna was 17, she says she married a man whose last name was Lester who turned out to be abusive. Ada claimed to have been married to Lester's brother, who also turned out to be abusive. After both marriages failed, they became actresses. Claiming their father died in the early 1890s, they said they came into a legacy of $35,000.
Abbott's research According to Abbott, whose research included an interview with the sisters' great niece, Minna and Ada were born in Greene County, Virginia to George Warren "Montgomery" and Virginia "Jennie" Madison Simms, the second and third of four daughters. Their mother died when they were young, as did their sisters. There were three brothers, who all survived to adulthood. Although the family was wealthy at the time of their birth, they lost much of their wealth during the
Civil War and the family lost their plantation when they couldn't pay their taxes. Both sisters were married but subsequently divorced. ==Later life==