Happy Thanksgiving! November 18, 2018

Gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.
~G.K. Chesterton

Happy Thanksgiving! On this week of Thanksgiving I want to say how grateful I am to all of you who are readers of The Shepard's Crook. Researching our family history and sharing my findings in this blog has been a very enjoyable endeavor for the past 11 years. It has provided insights into our family history that I never thought possible. I have learned about ancestors, especially from pre-Civil War times, who were unknown to my parents and my grandparents. More than once I have wished I had known this or that about our heritage while my father or my grandparents were still alive. And amazing discoveries continue to be made. Some have reflected negatively upon our family. But more often they have been pleasant and have been cause for celebrating those who went before us.

So thanks to all of you who read this blog and who are willing to journey with me in the discovery of ancestors. Some have been lost to history for many years, but thanks to the advances in genealogical research their stories are now available. I appreciate all of you who have shown an interest in The Shepard's Crook and wish you all the very best for Thanksgiving 2018!

One Reader's Response. I received word just last week from one particular reader of The Shepard's Crook who provided me with some significant family information that I never knew about my own Grandfather. She did not give her name but said she was a daughter of my Grandfather Gower's half sister. I never knew Grandpa Gower had any half siblings. But after searching online and following up on the information she gave me, I discovered that Grandpa Gower did most certainly have other siblings. He had three half-siblings who were much younger than him.

George William Gower's rustic grave marker

Highland Cemetery, Okemah, Oklahoma

A Late In Life Marriage. Here's how it all happened: Grandpa Gower's father, George William Gower (1873-1944) had 7 children by my Great Grandmother Serena Elizabeth Turner Gower (1876-1931), my Grandpa Leroy Gower being #3. After his wife Serena died in 1931, Great Grandpa George Gower decided he was not satisfied being a widower so he married a second time late in life. As 59 years old, George was the father of 5 adult children and the grandfather of 5 young children (including my mother Maida Gower). Nonetheless, soon after his wife Serena died, he married a 22 year old young woman named Phoebe Edna Root, who was 37 years younger than him.

Now there is some question about the order of events here. The 1930 US Census (see image below) shows that Serena Elizabeth Gower and husband George Gower were still living on the family farm in Morse, Oklahoma, about 80 miles east of Oklahoma City. Morse was a small farming community a few miles north of Okemah in Okfuskee County. Death records show that Serena died the next year on May 15, 1931. But George and young Edna's first child was born in 1929, which is something of an embarrassing anomaly. It appears that Great Grandpa Gower got started on his second family a little early. I won't try to guess at how to explain that. There may be a number of different factors to consider. But it nevertheless is a bit disconcerting.

Snippet from the 1930 US Census for Morse Township, Oklahoma

With young Phoebe Edna, the elder George Gower had three children: George Wayne, Georgia Lou and Gary Dale, all three of whom were therefore half siblings of my grandfather Leroy Gower, who was 40 years older than the youngest of the three. So in the 1930s as Great Grandpa George entered his 60s he was once again a father of youngsters as he and young Edna raised this second set of children on the farm in rural Okfuskee County, Oklahoma. George lived until 1944 when he passed away at the age of 70. He left a young widow in her 30s with three children who were 14, 10 and 5 years old.

Grave of Serena Elizabeth Gower (1876-1931)

Highland Cemetery, Okemah, Oklahoma

A Visit to Highland Cemetery. When my mother and I visited Okemah, Oklahoma a few years ago, we went to the grave of her Grandfather George William Gower. We were surprised at the rustic headstone which marks the place where he lay in Highland Cemetery just northeast of Okemah. His marker is just a flat slab of rock with no words on it at all, just the letter "G" scratched on it, almost haphazardly. I could not imagine a more basic, unadorned, carelessly crafted headstone. Sadly it seems that whoever was responsible for his burial was unwilling to make arrangements for anything other than the simplest stone imaginable. One can only wonder why.

On the other hand, only a few feet away from his grave is the marker for his first wife Serena Elizabeth Gower, whose headstone is more elaborate by comparison. It is not ornate certainly, but at least a modicum of care was taken in purchasing a fitting marker for this beloved lady who died at just 54 years old.

This may not be the most uplifting family story, but it is one more reminder to be thankful for all the ancestors who went before us, the saints and the sinners. They were a mixed bag of individuals who faced a variety of difficulties and sought to make the best of what life brought them. 

- - -

Steve Shepard

Catching a Glimpse of the Ancestors, September 29, 2014

I grew up with six brothers.
That's how I learned to dance -
waiting for the bathroom.
~Bob Hope

Greetings to all of you from Peru where Cindy and I are enjoying ourselves with a couple friends. Today we are on our way to the scenic and lofty Colca Canyon (where we are staying at over 11,200' elevation) in the southern part of this beautiful, historic country. 

The first picture was taken a few days ago in front of the Basilica San Francisco in Lima, Peru and shows our traveling companion Linda with Cindy and me. We had just come up out of the sprawling catacombs beneath the church behind us, where we walked through a maze of dark, dank caves. All around us were thousands of ancestral bones. At one point we heard music and looked up to see a ventilation grate in the ceiling of the catacombs. Through the grate we caught a glimpse and heard the sounds of a worship service in progress in the Church over our heads. It was somewhat eeire, a little bit comforting, but all a part of this strange but memorable subterranean experience. Since then I have considered how that is what the Shepard's Crook is: a way of catching a glimpse of the lives and stories of our ancestors whom we seek to remember. Thanks to Barbara, our other travelling companion, for taking this picture.

George and Serena Gower. In this post I am offering a glimpse of my Great Grandparents George Gower and Serena Turner. On September 15, 1893, 121 years ago, they were married in Timbo, Arkansas, a little country town west of Mountain View. Interestingly, their son Leroy and his wife Nola were also married in that same little town, also in the month of September, but 28 years later. Timbo was, and still is, the only town of any size in the area known as Sylamore (in Stone County) where our Gower and Shannon ancestors were farmers.

Like many young adults in the 19th century, George and Serena were young when they married. He was 20 and she was just 17. George's grandfather Jackson William Gower had been among the first Gowers to settle in Stone County, Arkansas in the 1850s when it was very sparsely populated and a welcome place for homesteaders. 

Serena Turner's family was from Tennessee and came to Arkansas not long before she was born in 1876, and settled east of Mountain View on the White River. She never attended school or learned to read or write.

There were not too many options for young couples of farming families in late 19th century Arkansas, so George and Serena also became farmers. The 1900 Census, when he was just 27 and she was 23, shows that they owned their own Sylamore home and farm outright. 

On their farm they raised 6 children, the second one being my grandfather Leroy Gower. Their first child Lloyd W. Gower was killed in WWI in France, and is buried today in Stone County Arkansas. There is a marker in Mountain View's town square honoring him.

Farming in the hills of the Ozarks was not the most lucrative profession, so George and Serena, like others of their kin, moved westward into Oklahoma in the 1920s and settled in Okemah where they farmed and lived the rest of their lives. Serena died in 1931, George in 1944. 

The first picture (above) shows their graves in Highland Cemetery, just north of Okemah. He has one of the most rustic looking headstones, with nothing but a rough "G" carved onto it, while hers is significantly more attractive (see the circular insets). Sometime after their deaths, their family erected a large headstone alongside their graves with simply "Gower" written on it.  

Happy Birthday to Alexandria Cotten. Today is the birthday of Alexandria Cotten, of San Antonio, Texas, one of the direct descendants of the aforementioned George and Serena Gower. Lexi is the younger daughter of Heather and Sean Cotten, and another one of the GG Grandchildren of Leroy and Nola Shannon Gower.

The second picture, taken in August in Oak Harbor, Washington, shows Lexi with her Great Grandmother Vicki Gower Johnston. This picture was taken in the home of Vicki and her husband Duke.

Another Texas birthday. Today is also the birthday of Cathrina Helms Clark of Lubbock, Texas, the wife of Jerry Clark. The third picture, a selfie taken in Yosemite this past summer, shows Jerry and Cathrina enjoying the beautiful scenery of California alongside a stream in the Sierra Nevada.

Cathrina: Thank you for the birthday wishes! We have had a great year! My, how quickly the years pass! We took a road trip up Hwy 1 (north of LA) this past summer. What a beautiful drive. We also really enjoyed Yosemite! I truly understand why Yosemite is one of your and Cindy's favorite places. Death Valley was very interesting. I really enjoy working at the school and being on the same work schedule as Jerry. Our grandchildren are growing and all doing well!  All of our children are doing well. We have so much to be thankful for. So exited to hear about Maida's 90th Birthday party Nov 1 in Anacortes that Jerry will be attending.
- - -
Steve Shepard

Reflections on a Journey, September 19, 2013

Families are messy.

Sometimes the best we can do

is remind each other

that we're related for better or for worse...

and try to keep the maiming and killing to a minimum.

~Rick Riordan 

Hello Family and Friends,

Greetings to all of you from Northern California where Cindy and I find ourselves during this extended time away from home.

Later this month is the 92nd wedding anniversary of my late grandparents Leroy Gower and Nola Shannon Gower. They were married in Mountain View, Arkansas on September 29, 1921 when grandpa Leroy was a young man of 22 and grandma Nola was a just a teenager of 18. They both have been gone now for many years, but their influence remains in the lives of all of us who knew them.

They were both born near Mountain View, but after they married and then had their first two children (Hank and Maida), they left Arkansas and migrated westward as did many other family and friends. Their first move was to Okemah, Oklahoma; after 17 years there they moved to San Diego where they lived almost all the rest of their lives.

The first picture was taken in 1953, in Yosemite National Park, during a memorable family vacation. It was taken about 10 years after the Gowers had moved to California. It shows Nola and Leroy with me sitting in front of them. This image is from an old, wrinkled photograph, hence the marks and scratches. 

Their early years in Mountain View and then their move to Okemah have been on my mind a lot recently as a result of a visit my mom and I made to Arkansas and then Oklahoma earlier this month. Spending a few days in Mountain View gave me a much better feel for the kind of people they were: their simple needs, their religious beliefs, their down to earth approach to life, their love of family and neighbors, their easy going ways, their acceptance of hard work, and their willingness to take with grace whatever life brought them.

After a few days in Arkansas, mom and I drove from Mountain View to Okemah, Oklahoma and made the same 300 mile journey that mom had made as a baby back in the fall of 1925 with her brother Hank and her parents Leroy and Nola.

The second picture was taken in a museum in Fort Smith, Arkansas, one of the stops on the journey to Okemah from northern Arkansas. It shows a typical wagon from the early 20th century and may have been the kind of transportation Leroy and Nola used to get to their new home in Oklahoma. It wouldn't have been a very smooth ride -- especially for the 2 little ones -- but it would have been a common way for a young family to make the 300 mile journey in the 1920s.

Mom and I took it slow when we drove that same route recently and it still was an easy day's drive for us. We wound along SR9 out of the Arkansas hills, past towns like Fox and Peed, and then suddenly found the 21st Century when we joined super highway I-40, which took us all the way to Okemah. For them, on dusty bumpy dirt roads, where every creek was an adventure and every Indian sighting made them wary, the journey a century ago must have taken several days, perhaps a week or more. Mom as a 1 year old, and her brother Hank as a 3 year old, made the journey even more challenging for 26 year old Leroy and his sturdy young 22 year old bride Nola.

When we visited Okemah, we stopped at the old home on 4th St, the schools way across town on 2nd St, the Sonic Drive-In out on the Highway, and City Hall in the middle of town (which seemed little more than a one person office). Our first stop however was Highland Cemetery. The only members of our family still left in Okemah reside in that peaceful place on the hill just north of town. Among our kinfolk there are Leroy's parents George and Serena Turner Gower. The second picture shows the Gower headstone in that cemetery with the individual flat stones of George and Serena just behind the family headstone and to the left.

Being at these historical family sites and musing on the challenges of travel and migration gives me a greater appreciation for these ancestors of ours and all they endured to bring us to where we are today.
- - -

Steve Shepard

The Gower Big Picture, Sunday, March 3, 2013

No one's family is normal.

Normalcy is a lie invented by advertising agencies

to make the rest of us feel inferior.

~Claire LaZebnik

Hello Family and Friends,

After my last post, I decided that an overview of our Gower ancestry would be in order. Fortunately we have a pretty clear picture of the Gowers from whom Grandpa Leroy Gower was descended, going all the way back to the first arrival of the Gowers in this country in the 17th century.

Happy Birthday Kerri. First, however, I need to say Happy Birthday to one of Grandpa Gower's Ggrandchildren, Kerri Shepard Aquiningoc. She was born on this day in 1968 while her parents were on something of an extended visit to Michigan. They were there for little more than a year, when Kerri was born. My guess is that their new baby made them so homesick for California they decided to return to San Diego, which is where Kerri was raised from the age of about 3 months.

Today Kerri lives in Weatherford, Texas, not far from  Lyndsey and Mandi, her two daughters (see first picture). Mandi will present Kerri with her first grandchild this June when Mandi and her boyfriend Stephen will welcome the arrival of a baby girl. That new baby will be the first GGG grandchild of Leroy and Nola Shannon Gower (and the first GGG grandchild of Will and Bura Davis Shepard). And will make my brother Gary a Great grandpa!

Mandi: My mom is excited to be a grandma and everyone else is excited for me too. She'll be born June 19, exactly a month before my dad's birthday:) I thought that was kind of cool:) Her full name is Kambree Kay Bowman:) I'm doing great as well. Me and my boyfriend Stephen have our own place in Mineral Wells so we've been pretty busy the past couple weeks. I'm still working at Panda Express and I love it. I miss and love all you guys!!

The Gower Big Picture. Our Gower family line is actually quite impressive. Information is available that shows Grandpa Gower's paternal family line originating with Irish immigrant Abell Gower who came to America from Boulton, County Gloucester, England sometime before 1640. That is the year his son, also named Abell Gower, was born in Henrico, Virginia.

The graphic below (click on it for a larger view) shows the migration pattern for 10 generations of our Gower ancestors between 1640 and 1942. It begins in Henrico, Virginia (near Richmond) on the East Coast, and culminates in San Diego on the West Coast where Leroy and Nola Gower settled in 1942 and lived almost all the rest of their lives.

• Point A (Henrico, Virginia) on the map is where Abell Gower (1640-1689) was born.
• Point B (Wake County, N.C.) is where Abell and Jane Gower's son, named Abel (with one L) Gower, was born in 1690. (Read more about them in this blog post.)
• Point C (Iredell, N.C.) is where Abel's grandson Thomas Gower (and wife Mary Robertson) lived in 1780.
• Point D (Blount County, Tenn.) is where Thomas and Mary's son Matthew (and wife Susannah) lived in 1800.
• Point E (Wayne, Tenn.) is where Abel and Rachel (Lay) Gower lived in 1830. (Read more about them in this blog post.)
• Point F (Tishomingo, Miss.) is where Jackson and Mary (Anderson) Gower lived in 1850.
• Point G (Stone County, Arkansas) is where Leroy and Ellen (Taylor) Gower lived in 1880. (Read more about them in this blog post.)
• Point H (Okemah, Oklahoma) is where George and Serena (Turner) Gower moved in the 1920s. (Read more about them in this blog post.)
• Point I (San Diego, Ca.) is where Leroy and Nola (Shannon) Gower settled in 1942. (Read more about them in this blog post.)

It took about 300 years for our Gower ancestors to get from Henrico, Virginia, where they arrived from England, to San Diego, where they completed their migration across the country. Like countless other families, they were driven westward, slowly at first and then jumping the final half of the country to the West Coast in the middle of the 20th century, when travel was much easier. The first half of their migration across country was by foot, on horseback, or in a horse-drawn wagon.

Since 1942 Leroy and Nola Gower's descendants have scattered, and today live primarily in Southern California/Arizona (where their son Hank Gower's family lives) or in Northwest Washington (where their 2 daughters Maida Gower Shepard and Vicki Gower Johnston now live). Other Gower descendants live elsewhere in California, Texas, Tennessee and Indiana.
- - -
Steve

Gower Anniversaries, September 23, 2012

If nothing is going well,

call your grandmother.

-Italian proverb

Hello Family and Friends,

Greetings to all of you from Anacortes, Washington where Cindy and I are visiting my mom and family. This week is the wedding anniversary of two important couples in our Gower family history.

91 years ago, on September 29, 1921, my grand parents Leroy Gower and Nola Shannon Gower, were married in Mountain View, Arkansas. She was just 18 and the youngest of a family of 9 children; he was 21 and the 3rd of a family of 7 children. At the time both their families lived in the small farming community of New Nata, in Stone County, Arkansas, about 10 miles west of Mountain View.
 
Their families had lived in the Northern Arkansas area for a couple of gene- rations, so it was something of an adventurous move when, as a young couple with two young children, they moved 300 miles west to Okemah, Oklahoma. My mother Maida (1 year old) and her brother Hendrix (3 years old) were the babies who made the move in 1925. 

Okemah is where this young family lived for 17 years, struggling in near poverty. Finally in 1942, now with a 3rd child Melva (Vicki), they made their way to San Diego, where Leroy and Nola settled for most of the rest of their lives.

The first picture, taken last month, shows my mother Maida Gower Shepard at Greenwood Memorial Cemetery in San Diego. Behind her are the graves of almost a dozen family members, including the graves of Leroy Gower and Nola Shannon Gower. The second picture is another view of their two graves.

The anni- versary of my grand parents Leroy and Nola Gower is just 4 days after the anniversary of Leroy's parents, George Gower and Serena Elizabeth Turner. On September 25, 1893 (115 years ago this week) they were married, also in Stone County, Arkansas where they both were born and raised. At the time of their marriage she was just 16, and he was 20. 

They also made the move from Arkansas to Oklahoma in the early 20th century, where their son Leroy and his wife Nola had moved. Okemah, in Okfuskee County Oklahoma, however, was the farthest west that they ever lived and is where they are buried. Select this link to see the grave of my Ggrandfather George Gower. Select this link to see the grave of my Ggrandmother Serena ("Lizzie") Turner Gower.

As we remember the anniversaries of these Gower couples, we are also reminded of their lives and their challenges, but also the wonderful memories we have of them, especially the two that many of us remember as Grandpa and Grandma Gower.
- - -
Steve

Shepard Family Update, Sept. 25, 2009

The family. We were a strange little band of characters
trudging through life sharing diseases and toothpaste,
borrowing money, locking each other out of our rooms,
inflicting pain and kissing to heal it in the same instant,
and trying to figure out the common thread
that bound us all together.
~Erma Bombeck

Hello Shepard Family and Friends,

Kairestismoi semeira! (Greetings yet again!) from the beautiful Greek Island of Santorini, on this first Friday of fall, which began this past Tuesday. At least according to the calendar. Where we are it arrived a few days earlier when the wind started to blow this past Sunday and shorts and sandals gave way to pants and a light coat. Where did summer go? Cindy and I and our traveling companions Yorgos and Dionysios have enjoyed ourselves immensely, but we are now ready to conclude our trip and will be heading home this coming Tuesday.

On that very day, as we speed our way westward across the U.S. at 35,000 feet, we will gaze down at the Texas panhandle with birthday wishes for Cathrina (Helms) Clark. Cathrina, who is married to Jerry Clark of Lubbock, Texas, works for a large Cotton Cooperative in Lubbock. She spends time when she can with her kids and grandkids, of whom she is very proud. She and Jerry were married 3 1/2 years ago in Santa Fe, N.M., and have 7 grandkids between the two of them. The first picture I am including shows Cathrina and Jerry earlier this month at a Texas Tech football game.

Jerry has been a part of our family since 1970 when he married my sister Linda Shepard, who died in a car accident in 1971. The second picture I am including is an oldie and was taken in 1972 when Jerry graduated from Lubbock Christian University in Lubbock, Texas. In the picture with graduate Jerry are a couple of members of our family who made the trip from San Diego to Lubbock to celebrate his graduation. Maida Shepard is on the far left, while the taller of the two boys on the right is Russell Shepard, Maida's youngest son. The smaller fellow in front of Russ I cannot identify.  He might have just wandered into the picture by mistake. (Can any of you tell me who he is and rescue him from the terrible fate of anonymity?) The spindly legged, but bright eyed 12 year old in the purple dress next to Jerry is Barbara Shepard, Maida's daughter.

Barbara, by the way, is to be congratulated for being one of only two people who responded to my question last week about Ggrandmothers. Evidently when I asked the question, most of your eyes must have glazed over as you wondered why I would even ask such an inane question. But not Barbara. Oh, no. She, like me, delights in such diversionary pursuits and was quickest to report correctly the names of each of her Ggrandmothers, who had beautiful names like Elvira (Owens) and Caroline Matilda (Spear), Serena Elizabeth (Turner) and Finetta Clementine (Dearien). Her spelling left a little to be desired, but her heart was in the right spot, so I commend her wholeheartedly.

Also to be commended is Steven Paul Shepard of Anacortes, Washington, who was a half hour slower in responding, but he proudly gave the names of his 4 Ggrandmoms as well. His spelling left even less to be desired, but I like his spirit. To keep your eyes from glazing over yet again I'll be brief and give just the first names of his Ggrandmoms: Nola, Bura, Francis and Alice. (The full names and info of all these Ggrandmothers can be found on ancestry.com.)

A couple of weeks ago I included a recording of Grandad Will Shepard that cousin Dane Shepard made available recently. Actually Dane converted several different recordings from cassette tapes to MP3 format. They were the result of some cassette recordings that were made back in the 1970s, not long before Grandad died in 1976. Will Shepard, who was born in 1888, was quite a compelling story teller and had lots to say about his long life and varied experiences, making these recordings real gems. We are indebted not only to Dane and his family's foresight in making the original recordings, but for his efforts in converting them to digital format. Select this link to hear another recording of Will Shepard from the 1970s. In this recording he talks about family and his own father, as well as the "wild and woolly west".

I received an email from my brother Gary (of Oak Harbor, Washington) the other day who corrected my comment last week about the total of Maida Shepard's Ggrandchildren. I forgot to add his wife Cindy's 3 grandchildren, which raises Maida's Ggrandchild total to 7. I know this is a modest number when compared to other Ggrandmothers in our larger Davis family (in particular Mildred Davis), but it is a proud total nonetheless.

Have a great week celebrating what Erma Bombeck referred to as "the common thread that binds us all together" as this "strange little band of characters" we call family!
--
Steve