All American Owens Heritage, July 10, 2018

To forget one’s ancestors

is to be a brook without a source,

a tree without a root.

~Chinese Proverb

Elvira Owens Shepard and her Owens Heritage. The first of July was the 155th anniversary of the birth of my Great Grandmother Elvira Owens Shepard (1863-1931). She was the wife of William Elmer Shepard (1862-1915).  Elvira has always held special interest for me because she is the connection to our Owens family heritage. My Great Grandfather William Elmer Shepard had run away from his Indiana home as a teen in the 1880s and started a new life in Southwest Illinois. That's where he met Elvira. After marrying her in 1886 and having two children with her (Sadie and William), this young family moved westward and settled in Beaver County, Oklahoma in 1905. Some of their descendants eventually made it all the way to California and settled in San Diego, where a few of their descendants live to this day.

Elvira Owens Shepard 

with grandchildren Elmer and Pauline Shepard

about 1919 in Oklahoma 

Because of Elvira we have Owens roots that can be traced back to the very beginning of our nation. Her Great Grandfather Edmond Owens Sr. (1762-1821), was from rural Sussex County, Virginia and was a young teen when the USA came into being in 1776.

Elvira's Grandfather Edmond Owens Jr. (1795-1864) was actually born in South Carolina after his family had moved there from Virginia. But the Owenses were not in South Carolina very long. With his wife Sara Rives, Edmond Jr. migrated farther west to Davidson County, Tennessee where their son Payton Owens (1826-1872) was born. Payton moved on westward to Illinois as a young man. When just 19 he married another teenager Mary Wheeless in Washington County, Illinois, not far from Saint Louis. In 1865, near the end of the Civil War, Payton and Mary, living in Madison County, Illinois, gave birth to my Great Grandmother Elvira, the 7th of their 8 children.

So our Owens roots trace from Sussex County, Virginia to South Carolina to Davidson County, Tennessee to Madison County, Illinois. That's where Elvira Owen married my Great Grandfather William Elmer Shepard.

Edmond Owens Jr. about 1850

Edmond Owens Jr. One of the most colorful characters in this Owens history was GGG Grandfather Edmond Owens Jr. As a child, he had moved with his parents from North Carolina to Davidson County, Tennessee, where his parents became farmers. Edmond was still a teen when war broke out again with Great Britain. Edmond was one of the first to enlist for the American cause, just like his Grandfather Benjamin Owens, who served under Frances Marion, “The Swamp Fox”, during the Revolutionary War.

Edmond was part of the Western Tennessee Militia in this second War with Great Britain, also known as the War of 1812. He fought with Andrew Jackson in the famous Battle of New Orleans in January, 1815. He was part of a very diverse group of American soldiers who served together: Tennessee farmers, former Haitian slaves, frontiersmen, outlaws and pirates.

When Edmond and his ragtag group of soldiers first arrived in New Orleans to fight with Andrew Jackson, they did not make a good impression. They were not trained soldiers. They were pioneers and farmers. They wore woolen hunting shirts and dyed pantaloons, raccoon skin caps, and belts of untanned deerskin with hunting knives and tomahawks. They had long unkempt hair and were unshaven. They might be right at home in New Orleans today, but 200 years ago they would have appeared undisciplined and unfit to take on the invaders from across the Atlantic. The second picture of this post shows Edmond Owens later in life, probably about 1850, looking much neater and cleaner than in those earlier days of battle when fighting the British. 

Edmond Owens Land Grant, 1851

(click on picture for larger view)

Regardless of their appearance Edmond and his comrades routed the British in 1815. One eye witness officer said, "the redcoats fell like blades of grass beneath the scythe." Their victory was a huge boost to the morale of the still young United States. Edmond and the other Tennessee Volunteers became legendary for their service to their county. After the war, Edmond Owens Jr. and his family yielded to call of the American frontier. They left Tennessee in 1838 and settled 300 miles northwest, in Madison County, Illinois, where he received a land grant in 1851 for his service with the West Tennessee Militia (see image).

We are indebted to Great Grandmother Elvira Owens Shepard for this Owens heritage that we can be proud of. They are one more part of the great American tapestry that is the history of our family.

Remembering Paula Harris. I mentioned in my last post that my mother in law Paula Harris passed away in early June. Select this link to view a video that honors her life and family. This was part of the Memorial Service we had for her on June 23. We are grateful to God for the wonderful life of Paula Harris (1923-2018).
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Steve Shepard

Celebrants Over A Century Apart, June 26, 2015

If you as parents cut corners,

your children will too.

If you lie, they will too.

If parents snicker at racial and gender jokes,

another generation will pass on the poison.

~Marian Wright Edelman

Kyle Christian Sauvage. Today is Kyle Sauvage's 11th Birthday. Kyle, who lives in Weatherford, Texas, is the younger son of James Sauvage and Kelly Shepard Sauvage. He is the grandson of my brother Gary Shepard and Jackie Enderle Perry. He is also one of the Great Great Grandsons of Leroy and Nola Gower, and William and Bura Shepard.

This first picture shows Kyle holding a certificate he received from a basketball camp he attended earlier this month in Weatherford, Texas.

Elvira Owens Shepard (1865-1931). This coming Wednesday, July 1, is the birthday of Elvira Owens Shepard, the Great Great Great Grandmother of the aforementioned Kyle Sauvage. It was exactly 150 years ago, just as the Civil War was concluding, that she was born in the small community of New Douglas in far north east corner of Madison County, Illinois, 40 miles east of Saint Louis, Missouri.

Historical Note One: The day before Elvira Owens was born, the 4 conspirators in the assassination of President Lincoln, including Mary Surratt, were convicted by a military tribunal, and were hung just a few days later in Washington, D.C. Mary Surratt was the first woman ever sentenced to death by the Federal Government.

In the early 1880s, when just a young woman, Elvira met a young Hoosier vagabond who had recently wandered into town, by the name of William Elmer Shepard. His father had died in the war and he had run off from his home in Indiana to find a new life "out west" which turned out to be Madison County, Illinois. When Elvira and William met, it was the attraction of opposites: he was a wanderer, estranged from his family, unconnected to the community of his birth; she was a local girl from a strong, stable family, well connected to her community. They married in 1886 in Madison County and lived there for the next 20 years, bringing two children, William and Sadie, into the world.

About 1905 Elvira and husband William, with their 2 children, moved 700 miles westward, probably at the urging of the restless William Elmer. They settled in Beaver County, Oklahoma where William and Elvira lived for the rest of their lives. She is buried in Beaver County's Sophia Cemetery, alongside her first husband William Elmer Shepard and her late-in-life second husband Cal Williams.

This second picture (click on it for a larger view) shows a rather ragtag family group and was taken in Beaver County, Oklahoma about 1930. Starting from the far left, the second person (white hair, big smile) is Elvira Owens Shepard. (85 years later her GGG Grandson Kyle has a surprisingly similar smile.) To the right of Elvira is her daughter-in-law Bura Davis Shepard, then Bura's parents James Brooks Davis and Caroline Spear Davis. The tall fellow in the center in back is Lawrence Davis. On the far right looking dapper in a big stetson is Cal Williams (Elvira's second husband) and to the left of him (looking much less dapper in overalls) is my grandfather William Shepard (Elvira's son).

Elvira Owens represents the first generations of Americans in the newly re-United States of America of the late 1860s and beyond. Hers was the first generation that struggled to find the meaning of this American life without the evil of slavery. It was a time of reconstruction, with new opportunities, new prosperity, great social change and the ever growing westward movement.

Elvira also represents our connection to the Owenses of Madison County, Illinois. My grandfather William Shepard was born in Madison County and spent the first 16 or 17 years of his life there, the older child of Elvira and William Elmer. Granddad's only extended family was his mother's Owens family and he must have identified strongly with them throughout his early life and teen years. There are still extended Owens family members in Madison County today, as well as numerous Owens family members elsewhere around the U.S., some of whom are readers of this blog. We are fortunate to be related to them.

Historical Note Two: When Elvira died in 1931, there was a controvery over who should inherit her estate, her children or her second husband Cal Williams. The picture above from 1930 shows what appears to be a happy family gathering, but within a year or so of this picture being taken, the family splintered over the inheritance issue. It became very contentious and the matter was not settled until 1937, 6 years after Elvira's death, by the Oklahoma Supreme Court who ruled in favor of her second husband, the dapper Cal Williams. Select this link for a summary of that historic case.

The following is a lineage that includes Elvira Owens and her Great Great Great Grandson, Kyle Sauvage, whose birthdays are this week.

• Edmond Owens Jr., (1795-1864) who married Anna Phelps (1787-1861)
• Peyton Owens (1826-1872) who married Mary Wheeler (1825-1871)
• Elvira Owens (1865-1931) who married William Elmer Shepard (1862-1915)
• William Shepard (1888-1976) who married Bura Davis (1896-1986)
• Eugene Shepard (1921-2003) who married Maida Gower (b. 1924)
• Gary Shepard (b. 1946) who married Cindy Dillon (b. 1954)
• Kelly Shepard (b. 1973) who married James Sauvage (b. 1971)
• Kyle Sauvage (b. 2004)

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Steve Shepard

The Nuts Make the Tree Worth Shaking, June 6, 2014

Some family trees have beautiful leaves,

while others just a bunch of nuts.

Remember, it is the nuts

that make the tree worth shaking.

My grandfather William Shepard was the child of a woman from Illinois by the name of Elvira Owens. I do not write about our Owen heritage as much as other family lines in this blog. Nevertheless Elvira's family is an important part of our family history and worthy of celebrating. She is on my radar screen today because next Wednesday marks the wedding anniversary of her parents Payton and Mary Owens.

My GG Grandparents Payton Owens and Mary Wheeler were married June 11, 1846 in rural Washington County, Illinois, about 50 miles Southeast of St. Louis, Missouri. Payton, born in 1826 in Davidson County, Tennessee came to Western Illinois with his family as a child. Mary Wheeler was born in 1825 in Wood River, Illinois, just across the river from St. Louis, and lived her entire life in Western Illinois. She was 20 and he was just 19 when they were married in the town of Nashville, the Washington, Illinois County Seat, in the late spring of 1846.

By the time the Civil War started 15 years later in April, 1861, Mary and Payton had 6 children. Records show that he did not register for the Civil War draft until the summer of 1863. At that time he was 36 years old, he and Mary owned and farmed hundreds of acres of land, and they had a large family, all of which demanded their attention. I have found no record that Payton ever served in the military. After the Civil War, Mary and Payton had 3 more children, one of whom was Elvira Owens. 

The first picture shows Payton Owens, probably about 1860. I have shared this picture with you before when I was under the impression it was a picture of Payton's father Edmond Owens. But on the back of the original photo it states that it is Payton Owens.

In the 1880s when Elvira's family had moved to Madison County, Illinois, she met a wanderer who had come over from Indiana by the name of William Elmer Shepard. They eventually married and started their own family. In 1906, they moved away from Illinois in 1906 to Beaver County, Oklahoma with their children William and Sadie, and a whole new chapter of our family history began. Some of our Owens kinfolk still live in Western Illinois, a place that continues to be significant in our family history.

History Repeats Itself. Here's an interesting quirk of history: Mary and Payton Owens' wedding date of June 11, 1846 is exactly 100 years before the day that one of their Great Grandsons married his bride. On June 11, 1946, after the conclusion of World War II, my late aunt and uncle, Elmer Shepard and Beryl Swinney, were married in San Diego, California.

The second picture shows Elmer Shepard and Beryl Swinney in January, 1946 just months before they were married in June. Standing on the right is Elmer's brother Eugene Shepard with his wife Maida Gower Shepard (my parents). It is a little hard to tell but Maida is 10 months pregnant with their first child Gary.

Happy Birthday Emma! One of Payton and Mary Owens' GGGG Grandchildren is Emma Beverly Jean Wilk, who celebrates her 9th birthday today. She is the daughter of Shannon Wilk of Atchison, Kansas. The third picture shows Emma with "Papa Frank", who for 28 years was the partner of Shannon's dad Phil.

Shannon: "We are doing good. Emma is having a party on Sunday, she is getting excited. Still can't believe she is nine!! Couldn't wait for her to walk, now I am telling her to slow down. Couldn't wait for her to start talking, now I wish she would sshhhh! Can't help loving the kid. Hope all is well with you."

Happy Birthday to Emma! Here is her lineage to Mary and Payton Owens:

• Payton Owens (1826-1872) - wife Mary Wheeler (1825-1871)
• Elvira Owens (1865-1931) - husband William Elmer Shepard (1862-1915)
• William Shepard (1888-1976) - wife Bura Davis (1896-1986)
• Pauline Shepard (1916-2000) - husband Bill Russell (1908-1997)
• Beverly Russell (1939-1974) - husband Phil Wilk (1935-2007)
• Shannon Wilk (b. 1973)
• Emma Beverly Jean Wilk (b. 2005)

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Steve Shepard

Shepard Family Update, August 21, 2009

.

I came up out of those chilly waters
a bearcat for the Lord,
and have remained that way ever since!
-Carrie Nation
(19th Century activist)

Hello Shepard Family and Friends,

Greetings from the cool, green mountains of the High Sierra in Northern California. Cindy and I are looking forward to a pleasant weekend here with Nathan and Chenda.

I begin on a somber note. Today would have been the 59th birthday of my younger sister Linda Shepard, who died in 1971. It has been 38 years since the car accident that took her life, but the impact of her 21 years remains indelible on those who knew her. The first picture I am including was taken in 1970 and was one of the last family pictures with all 6 children. It shows Eugene and Maida Shepard on the back left. Seated next to them are Gary, me and Linda. In front are Darrell, Russell and Barbara.

We all make mistakes. Last week I sent a family picture from the 1940s in which I identified the young man in the picture as Rex Russell. The other child in the picture -- Thelma (Shepard) Boyd -- emailed me to say that the boy in the photo was NOT Rex. Instead it was Norman Getz, who was Rex's second cousin, and about the same age. (One has to work very hard to put something past Thelma!)

More About the Davises. A couple of weeks ago I mentioned Lucy Davis, the daughter of Tom Davis, and cousin of Bura Davis, all of whom were members of the New Union Church of Christ, near Spencer, Indiana about 100 years ago. Lucy had been baptized in 1916 in frozen Rattlesnake Creek, where the ice had to be broken to get her in the water. When I first heard that story, I must admit I was a little skeptical. Not just because I tend to be skeptical, but because I know how family stories DO get exaggerated sometimes! However, I have since learned that years ago, being baptized in a frozen creek was not all that unusual. For some, it even became something of a badge of honor, a point of pride. The following true story illustrates this. (I heard this in Indianapolis last month, told by TCU Church historian Newell Williams. This is my recollection and not a direct quote.)

Carrie Nation (1846-1911) was a 19th century temperance crusader adamantly opposed to the evils of drinking alcohol. She was also a member of the Stone-Campbell Movement (the movement that gave birth to the Churches of Christ, the Christian Church and the Disciples of Christ). Carrie Nation was in the habit of storming into a bar, with hatchet in hand (see her picture, hatchet and all), and driving out the drinkers and tearing up the place -- the tables and chairs, the bar, even the picture of the half naked lady behind the bar -- all "in the name of the Lord". Later a reporter asked her about such extreme behavior. She proudly reported that when she came to the Lord and was baptized, it was on the coldest day of the year. They had to saw a hole in the ice to get her into the river for baptism. "I came up out of those chilly waters a bearcat for the Lord, and have remained that way ever since!"

Call me a sissy, but I'm proud of my immersion in the heated waters of the indoor baptistry of the Linda Vista Church of Christ in San Diego (50 years ago last month!). Even so, you have to admire the spunk of a young person like Carrie Nation or Lucy Davis, who responds to God's call and is baptized outdoors, in the Midwest, in winter. Bura Davis was much more sensible. She had the good sense to be baptized in August! (See picture at left of Rattlesnake Creek near the New Union Church of Christ, taken this summer. This is the creek where they did their baptisms.)

I'd like to think that cousin Lucy Davis' icy December baptism in Rattlesnake Creek was something that she, like Carrie Nation, was proud of all her life. But no matter how full of pride Lucy may have been in her private moments, she would never have acted in such a rash, albeit purposeful manner as Ms. Nation. Our family has always valued modesty and decency too much for that. Lucy may have thought highly of that crusader, and may have even felt a kinship in spirit, but I doubt she would have acted with such abandon.

Even though Lucy may not have thought of her baptism as making her a "bearcat for the Lord", she was a devout Christian. Five years after her baptism, she married Frank Wheeler, who had been a fellow teen with her in the New Union Church. He had actually begun preaching at age 16, the same year as Lucy's icy baptism at age 13. (Hmm. A connection perhaps?) Their dream of a life together was cut short, however, when Frank died after just two years of marriage at age 24 of Typhoid fever while preaching for the Linton (Indiana) Church of Christ. Two children were born to that short marriage: Lloyd Wheeler (who also became a Church of Christ preacher) and Ruth (Wheeler) Fortner, who Cindy and I had the pleasure of spending time with recently in Spencer, Indiana.

Happy Birthday, Amanda. This coming Tuesday is the Birthday of Amanda Ortiz, one of Will and Bura (Davis) Shepard's 20 Ggrandchildren. Amanda lives in Blue Springs, Missouri with Jeff and (her mother) Kim Clark. She was part of Thelma (Shepard) Boyd's family who attended the family reunion in Oklahoma last month. In the picture surrounding Amanda are Desiree Ortiz on the left, Cindy Shepard and Barbara Shepard in the back, and on the right are Kori Boyd (in purple) and Kim Clark. Amanda is holding her niece Ashlyn Ortiz.

Have a great week. And as these long, warm days of August continue, let the thought of an icy baptism keep you cool. And full of spunk!
--
Steve