Severin E. Simonsen (1856-1935) was born in Wisconsin and died in Los Angeles, California. His parents emigrated to the United States from Norway in the spring of 1843 and joined the Methodist Episcopal Church. While in his teens, Simonsen conducted prayer meetings and preached in the Methodist pulpit in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. In 1881, he graduated from Garrett Biblical Institute, the first Methodist seminary in the Midwest, and a year later, he entered the ministry of the Methodist Episcopal Church, serving first in Wisconsin and later in Minnesota, Illinois, and New York. He married Mary E. Simonsen (b. Sawyer) in Waukesha, Wisconsin, in 1883. In 1886, after being told by physicians that he only had a few more months to live, Simonsen was healed through Christian Science. He continued serving in the Methodist ministry until some years later, when his son was also healed through Christian Science, and Simonsen left the pulpit in November 1900. The Simonsens joined The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Massachusetts, on June 11, 1901, and were both elected as Executive Members of The Mother Church on August 26, 1901. That same year, the Simonsens had Primary class instruction from Edward A. Kimball and the following year they moved to Connecticut, where the couple served as First and Second Readers of First Church of Christ, Scientist, New Haven. In 1920, the couple moved to Los Angeles and Simonsen published a book about his life's journey, From The Methodist Pulpit into Christian Science and How I Demonstrated the Abundance of Substance and Supply (1928). Simonsen was listed in the directory of The Christian Science Journal as a Christian Science teacher and practitioner in New Haven from 1903-1919 and as a practitioner in Los Angeles from 1920 until his death.

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