Family life is a bit like a runny peach pie -
not perfect but who's complaining?
~Robert Brault
Hello Shepard Family and Friends,
Kalimera! ("Good morning!") once again from Greece, this time from the beautiful Island of Santorini, a lovely paradise in the historic Aegean Sea. Even though things here are a little pricey -- $10 for a basket of chips at the local Mexican restaurant! -- we are enjoying ourselves very much. (What's a Mexican restaurant doing out in the Mediterranean anyway!?) And the currency is Euros, so it feels a little unreal to begin with.
Today is the 130th anniversary of the birthday of Levy Pruett (1879-1968), who many of you may never have even heard of. He was Grandad Will Shepard's brother-in-law, having married Grandad's only sibling, Sadie J. Shepard (1892-1980), in the summer of 1910 in Beaver County, Oklahoma. Whereas Bura (Davis) Shepard's family was quite large -- she had 6 siblings -- Will Shepard had only one sister. What this means is that the families of Will Shepard and his sister Sadie Shepard comprise the only descendants of their father William Elmer Shepard (1862-1915), AND their grandfather "Wabash" William Sheppard (1835-1862).The first picture I am including shows Sadie and Levy Pruett (on the right) with Will and Bura Shepard when the Pruetts came to San Diego from Oklahoma for a visit in 1946.
Levy (pronounced "LEH-vee", NOT "Levi", like the jeans) and Sadie (Shepard) Pruett eventually had 3 daughters -- Alberta (Pruett) Getz, Gayle Pruett and Twila (Pruett) Allred. There are quite a number of Shepard descendants from this part of our family living today, many of whose names we know, but so far we have been unable to locate any of them. None of them, of course, have the last name Shepard, but instead have last names like Allred, Getz, Pruett, and Kornegay. Hopefully something will turn up eventually and we can be in contact once again. If any of you who are reading this happen know any of Levy and Sadie's descendants, please send me an email with their contact information.
How well do you know your family? When visiting family in Washington State earlier this summer, we had some fun trying to see if we could each come up with the full names of our GREAT grandmothers. Do you know the names of your Ggrandmothers, including their middle names and maiden names? Take a moment right now and see if you can name them.
Ggrandmothers are interesting relatives. (So are Ggrandfathers, of course, but for a moment let's just think about GgrandMOTHERS.) Everyone has 4, each of whom has contributed to the gene pool to make us who we are. Most of us probably never met any of them, although a few of us are fortunate enough to say we have known them well. Even though we may never have met our Ggrandmothers, we probably are closely related to people who did know them very well. So more than likely we each have had some very good second hand information about them. Because our Ggrandmothers used their married names most of their lives, their maiden names often get forgotten. (Hence security questions like: "Mother's maiden name?")
Here's a challenge to all of you who are reading this: send me an email with the names of your 4 Ggrandmothers - or at least as much of their names as you can come up with. The first one who emails me the most complete information will be the winner, and will receive a special commendation.
There are a number of women in our larger family who have the distinct privilege of being Ggrandmothers. This second picture shows the two Ggrandmothers within our Shepard clan: Thelma (Shepard) Boyd and Maida Shepard. Thelma (on the left) is holding her youngest Ggrandchild (out of 3) Damian Ortiz, while Maida has on her lap her oldest Ggrandchild (out of 4, or is it 5?) Lyndsey Aquiningoc.
Antio gia tora ("So long for now") and have a great week!
--
Steve
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