Shepard Family Update, June 6

Dear Family members and friends,

Hello on this beautiful June day, from our home in the mountains of California, where the air is fresh, the trees are tall and green, and weather is just about perfect.

Fascinating Family Fact: Did you know? There has been a longstanding connection between our Shepard/Davis family and the Kilpatrick family, going back about a hundred years when the families first settled in Beaver County, Oklahoma.

When the Shepards migrated to Colorado and then to California in 1940, some of the Kilpatricks made the same move westward (and then NORTHwestward), and continued their family friendship. For example, in the 1960s, Edwin Kilpatrick was chosen to serve San Diego's Linda Vista Church of Christ as their minister, partly because of my family's influence in that congregation. And in other ways the families have remained close through the years. In recent years some of our family have attended the Davis-Kilpatrick family reunion that occurs every year or two.

Family Faces. I am including two family pictures. The first is a 1922 picture that illustrates the connection between the Shepards /Davises and the Kilpatricks. Like last week, it is a picture of Gram's father James Brooks Davis. This picture also includes her mother Callie Spear Davis, and their 5 grandchildren at the time. Three of the grandkids are Pauline Shepard (in the back), Elmer Shepard (in the middle), and Eugene Shepard (on the left). The other two are Geneva Kilpatrick (front center) and Bernard Kilpatrick (bottom right). The latter two are children of the two Davis girls who married Kilpatrick boys.

Gram was the oldest of the 7 children of James Brooks Davis and Callie Davis. Two of Gram's sisters married two Kilpatrick boys: Winona married Barney, and Myra married William. (Sisters of one family marrying brothers of another family is rare today, but in those days farming families were large and somewhat isolated. Often the best "marriage opportunities" were the kids in the next farm-family.)

Elmer, one of the children in the picture, recently turned 90. His son Dane emailed me last week regarding their celebration for his dad: "Dad's birthday went well and he said he enjoyed it a lot. I picked him up and we went out with the family for Mexican food. [My wife] Cindy's parents and two sisters with their kids joined us. Dad ate a hearty meal and then the waiters came with a sombrero for him to wear and a sopapilla with whipped cream and strawberries (which he liked), and we sang to him. Sorry, I didn't have my camera for that. We all came over to our place for dessert, cards and gifts. We gave him a digital picture frame and put some old as well as new photos on it, many of which you have sent in your e-mails."

Thanks, Dane for this update and for sending me the old family picture I am sharing!

Kudos to Patrick! The other picture is of Patrick Shepard and his father Darrell. Patrick is yet another of our family members who was born in 1990 and is graduating this spring. Patrick has been in an accelerated program at Inglemoor High School (Kenmore, Wa.) and is actually graduating a year early. He has already begun taking classes at Edmonds Community College and works full time to manage the dining room at a retirement facility in Bothell, Washington, near where his family lives. He plans to carve enough time out of his busy schedule to join us for the family reunion next month.

Also planning to be at the July family reunion is Don Kilpatrick and some of his family from Oregon. Don's brother and sister are the two Kilpatrick children in the old family picture you are seeing this week.

Remember: Shepard Family Reunion, Saturday, July 19, 2008, Anacortes, Washington. We hope you will be there too.
--
Steve