Grampa Simpson is the father to
Homer Simpson, father-in-law to
Marge Simpson and the paternal grandfather to siblings
Bart,
Lisa and
Maggie. Grampa has also fathered two illegitimate children; a daughter named Abbey by a British woman named Edwina while in the
United Kingdom during
World War II, and
Herbert Powell by a carnival prostitute. Grampa has an older brother named Cyrus, who lives in
Tahiti and has
multiple native wives. He also has a younger brother named Chet, who owns an unsuccessful shrimp company. Other siblings of his include Hubert, Tyrone, Fester, Bill, and Hortense. Grampa was briefly married to
Amber, the same woman Homer married on a drinking binge in
Las Vegas. Grampa has also been briefly married to Marge's sister,
Selma Bouvier, and was once romantically linked to Marge's mother,
Jacqueline Bouvier (his son's mother-in-law). Grampa Simpson is also married to Rita LaFleur. Almost all of Grampa's biographical information is supplied by himself and seems to be
made up, although this could be likely due to his old age. Many of his stories seem to be wildly inaccurate, often physically or historically impossible, and occasionally inconsistent even with each other, suggesting that Grampa is quite
senile. It is unknown where Grampa was born. He claims that he came to America as a boy from the "old country", but he cannot remember which country it was, although most likely it was the United Kingdom or
Ireland. Grampa was raised in New York City with his parents, Orville J. Simpson and Yuma Hickman. He gives his age as 83 in the Season 17 episode "
Million Dollar Abie," while in "
Grampy Can Ya Hear Me" (season 29), the family celebrates his 87th birthday, although he is canonically 83. In the Season 25 episode "
The Winter of His Content," Homer states that Grampa's father is still alive. Due to the show's
floating timeline, his age remains the same over the years, and newer episodes still depict him as a
World War II veteran. In "
The Color Yellow," he reveals that he is the great-great-grandson of Mabel Simpson, a family ancestor who lived during the time of the
American Civil War, and Virgil, an escaped slave whom she married after divorcing her first husband Hiram. Grampa is a veteran of World War II, where he served as
Master Sergeant of the
Flying Hellfish unit which included himself (the Unit Commander), Radio Operator Sheldon Skinner (
Seymour Skinner's father), Private Fifth Class Arnie Gumble (
Barney Gumble's father), Asa Phelps, Iggy Wiggum (
Clancy Wiggum's father), Milton "Oxford" Haas, Etch Westgrin, Griff McDonald, Private
Charles Montgomery Burns and Grey Fox. At the very end of the war in Europe, Grampa's unit "liberated" a stash of priceless art from surrendering German forces. The Flying Hellfish formed a
tontine and buried the art in a trunk at sea. Decades later, Burns, the second surviving member of the unit, tried to murder Grampa in order to get the art, prompting Grampa to violate the tontine. When Grampa and Bart retrieved the art from Mr. Burns,
the State Department arrived to return the art to its rightful owner. Grampa was a hated wrestler named "Glamorous Godfrey" in the 1950s, revealed in the episode "
Gorgeous Grampa", starring him and
Mr. Burns. Homer's mother,
Mona Simpson, was married to Grampa for several years. According to "
Let's Go Fly a Coot", they met in the 1950s and hooked up on the day Grampa allegedly broke the
sound barrier. She became entranced with the hippie lifestyle after seeing
Joe Namath's hair on television. She became a fugitive from justice after she abetted in the sabotage of a
biological weapons research lab owned by Mr. Burns to deliberately poison everyone in
Springfield. To explain this to his then-six-year-old son, Grampa said that Mona died while Homer was at the movies. Grampa has a poor, but sometimes loving relationship with his son, who placed him in a nursing home as soon as he could, despite Grampa selling his house in order to provide Homer with a mortgage. It is recurringly suggested that, while caring, Grampa was a strict disciplinarian who could be very controlling, neglectful, and even emotionally abusive towards Homer when he was growing up and he still had not forgiven him for that. After Mona left Homer at a young age and ran off with a
jester, Grampa brought up Homer by himself. In the season four episode, "
The Front", Grampa tells Roger Myers Jr., head of Itchy and Scratchy studios, that he worked as a cranberry silo night watchman for forty years. The Simpson family will often do their best to avoid unnecessary contact with Grampa. A running gag in the show usually has Grampa in a cameo appearance where he wonders where everyone is or wishes to be noticed by the family. One example of this was when the family thought they left something on the plane in the episode "
Fear of Flying", which is revealed to be Grampa. Despite this, Homer has shown feelings of love for his father from time to time. ==Character==