Born in Broșteni, Caraș-Severin County, in the Banat region, his father Ioachim was a Romanian Orthodox priest; his mother Calina ("née" Berceanu) died of tuberculosis when Simeon and his brother were young. Following primary school in his native village, he attended secondary school in nearby Oravița before going on to Szeged, Lugoj and Oradea. He studied law at the Royal University of Pest from 1852 to 1855. While there, he began learning the Romance languages, particularly Italian and Spanish. He subsequently went to Vršac ("Vârșeț"), where he took theology from 1856 to 1858, upon his father's insistence. Later, his theological studies would be useful in his research on folk practices, and he also learned Serbian while in the town. In 1858, he was named a government lawyer in Timișoara and a teacher of Romanian language and literature at the gymnasium in the same city. Also in 1858, he married Ana Miletici, the daughter of a large landowner from Oravița. As a teacher, he was intensely involved in Romanian cultural activity. When political conditions allowed, he pressed for the establishment of a Romanian-language newspaper in Timișoara, believing that this was the best means of organizing a populace that had become passive following the 1848 revolution. In 1861, he was elected chief administrator for the Jamu Mare district by the voters of his county, and he held the post for some eight years. In 1868, he passed the bar examination; the following year, he left government administration and settled as a lawyer in Oravița.