Celebration and Remembrance, Dec 5, 2012

You are born into your family
and your family is born into you.
No returns. No exchanges.
~Elizabeth Berg

Hello Family and Friends,

Happy Birthday, Pat! Today, Dec 5, is the 22nd birthday of my nephew Patrick Shepard, who is a Ggrandchild of both Will and Bura Shepard, and Leroy and Nola Gower. Patrick is the younger son of my brother Darrell and his wife Mary.

Pat and his wife Nicole live in Bothell, Washington. He is the administrator of a health care facility in Edmonds, while Nicole is a nurse in Kirkland. They were married back in March, they bought a new home in August, and now their lives will be changed even more, as Pat explains below.

Pat: "On my birthday Nicole and I will go out to dinner and then on Saturday we will have some friends and family over for dinner. This will be my last birthday celebration without a little one around. Nicole is 9 weeks pregnant and we are so excited about it! We have our first ultrasound appointment this Friday! We are comfortable in our new home and now need to start setting up a nursery in one of these empty rooms!"

Lincoln. Cindy and I recently saw the new Steven Spielberg movie Lincoln, an excellent film about Abraham Lincoln's struggle to pass the 13th amendment to the constitution, abolishing slavery. The film is very well done, historically accurate, and is masterfully crafted. For a 2 1/2 hour movie, it is wonderfully paced. It is about the power, the promise and the pitfalls of the political process as it tells about events of great importance in our family's history.

Another Civil War Ancestor. Watching the film prompted me to do more research into ancestors who served in the Civil War. I have mentioned a number of times in this blog about GGgrandfather William Shepard (1835-1862) who died in the service of the Union Army. But until very recently I did not know the story of another Civil War soldier in our family tree. On the Gower side of my family is GGgrandfather David Reid Shannon (1821-1864), who served in the Confederate Army.

David Shannon and his wife Peggy Gray were originally from Monroe County, Mississippi but had moved to Sugartown, Louisiana by the time of the war. At nearby Alexandria, David entered the Confederate Army in April, 1864 at the age of 43. At the time, he and Peggy were the parents of 7 children, ranging in age from 15 to 1 1/2 years old. (They had a 6 year old named Samuel Pickens Shannon, who would later become the father of Nola Shannon Gower, my grandmother).

At 43 years old, with a wife and 7 children, one can understand why David waited until 1864, rather late in the war, to answer the call to serve. By that time several hundred thousand men had died or been wounded, and the Confederacy was desperate for more soldiers. David served in the Louisiana Cavalry, 2nd regiment, as a Cavalry Scout for military operations in Western Louisiana and Eastern Texas.

After hearing nothing from or about her husband for over a year, his wife Peggy went to Alexandria, Louisiana in June, 1865 and met with a man who had served with her husband. He gave her the tragic news that David had gotten sick and had died in November of 1864, 7 months previous! News did not travel fast in those days. According to the National Archives, 1st Sargent David Reid Shannon of the 2nd Louisiana Cavalry died at New Orleans of "Chronic Diarrhea and Intermittent Fever" on November 8, 1864.

Heartsick, Peggy left Alexandria and returned home to Sugartown to her 7 children, to figure out how to put her family's life back together. I will share more of the story of David Reid Shannon and his widow Peggy in my next blog post. The second picture shows Chalmette Cemetery in New Orleans, where David Reid Shannon was laid to rest 148 years ago this month. Thanks to KWRorie for sharing this picture online.

The following is a 13 generation lineage of Patrick Shepard through Civil War soldier David Reid Shannon to the oldest Shannon ancestor I know about, Irishman John Shannon.

• Patrick Shepard (b. 1990) (wife Nicole Haw) the son of...
• Darrell Shepard (b. 1954) (wife Mary Medina) the son of...
• Maida Gower Shepard (b. 1924) (husband Eugene Shepard) the daughter of...
• Nola Shannon Gower (1902-2004) (husband Leroy Gower) the daughter of...
• Samuel Pickens Shannon (1858-1930) (wife Finetta Dearien) the son of...
• David Reid Shannon (1821-1864) (wife Peggy Gray) the son of...
• David McKnight Shannon (1790-1860) (wife Anna Pickens) the son of...
• David Shannon (1756-1823) (wife Jane McKnight) the son of...
• Samuel Shannon (1727-1811) (wife Jean Reid) the son of...
• Thomas Shannon (1686-1737) (wife Eigness Reid) the son of...
• Robert Shannon (1630-1724) (wife Annal --) the son of...
• John Shannon (1601-16??) the son of...
• John Shannon (1571-1605)

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Steve Shepard