Shepard Family Update, April 11, 2008

Dear Family members and friends,

Greetings from our home in Dorrington, California, in the heart of the Sierra Nevada. Dorrington is a quiet little mountain town, so small that the closest traffic light is a half hour drive down the hill. The lightest dusting of snow fell this last week as the last vestiges of winter.

Fascinating Family Fact: Did you know? The part of our Shepard family that originates with Gram and Grandad (Will and Bura Shepard) has 4 living generations of people.

The first generation is made up of Gram and Grandad's 4 children and their spouses. The living members of that generation are Elmer Shepard and Thelma Boyd, along with Thelma's husband Terry, and Eugene's wife Maida.

The second generation is Will and Bura's grandchildren. The oldest and youngest of the 10 living people in that generation are Rex Russell and Darren Boyd. (Add spouses and you get at least 17 people in this generation.)

The oldest and youngest of the 20 people (at least 24 when you add spouses) in the third generation are Eric Russell and Kaylan Shepard.

And the oldest and youngest of the 7 young people in the fourth generation (no spouses here, yet!) are Lyndsey Aquiningoc and Damian Ortiz. There may be more than 7 members in this fourth generation, belonging to Eric Russell. Do any of you know about them?

Family Faces. Whenever our family has taken pictures of itself over the years, one interest has been in showing as many generations in one picture as possible. The first picture I am sending is an example of this. (Click on the picture to enlarge it.) Taken in Anacortes, it shows four generations: Gram (Bura Shepard), her son Eugene Shepard, his son Darrell Shepard, and his son Christopher Shepard. Christopher, born in 1984, was just a few months old at the time. The picture was taken just 2 years before Gram died at 90 years old. She lived the last several years of her life in Anacortes with son Eugene and Maida.

The other is a picture taken recently by Patrick Shepard, who writes:

This is a picture of my sister Rachel, and our mom Mary that I took in Anacortes, Washington on Christmas Day, 2007. Rachel will be 21 this month and she is doing very well. She works as a Community Relations Director for a rising Senior Living Company in Seattle and really enjoys it. In her spare time she enjoys spending time with our family. We are a very close family these days. We all still live together in Bothell, Washington and three of us work in the same company together.

Rachel's Birthday is this coming Monday. She has arrived at the magic age of 21! Best wishes and Happy Birthday to her. View a slide presentation celebrating her birthday!

Remember: Shepard Family Reunion, Saturday, July 19, 2008, Anacortes, Washington. Darrell and Mary and their family plan to be there. We hope you will be there too.

Steve

[P.S.... If you know of other family members or friends who would like to receive these emails, please ask them to send me an email at shepard@sierrawebworks.com -- or give me their email addresses -- and I will include them on the email list. If you have their physical address, please send that to me as well and I will make sure they receive an invitation to the reunion by US Mail. Also, please let me know if you would rather I use a different email address for you, or if you would prefer NOT to receive these emails.]