| Notes |
- Notes from William Shepard:
“My earliest memories are of Duvall, OH; a large mill and grain storage along-side a railroad track. Our small frame house was one of a dozen, lining the single street throught the town. A four room schoolhouse (which I never attended, as we moved away at the age of three). Reed’s general store and post office. And the inter-urban trolley only coming within a mile of the village.
About the age of 5, after we had moved to the city. Dick or Dad would put me on the electric trolley in Columbus, Ohio and tell the conductor to let me off at Duvall, about ten miles to the south. Joe Shannon would be waiting for me, and we would walk the mile to their house, along the gravel road. It was such a change from the crowded city streets of Columbus. “Uncle” Joe and I would oftern walk to a nearby farm for the daily can of cream-topped milk which Dell placed in the cool cystern until enough accumulated to make butter. It was magic when she allowed me to push the handle up and down, spanking the milk until it turned into clusters of yellow butter. Magin too, was the large cookie jar, which was always full to the brim with huge raison cookies.
The big event though, was the workshop. It was a large room in the barn. The walls were covered with tools, saws, planes, chizels, hammers and there were no restrictions!!! Joe would always find pieces of lumber and nails, and he had the good sense to let me find my way, to experiment until I would reach a dead end when I would come to him with a ‘how do I do this...’. I was well on my way to learning how to use tools before I went to school.
I can remember my third Christmas, coming down the stairs and seeing a wind up train going around the track and having Santa knock at the door! (It was my brother Herman, then 15).
I don’t remember much of my father from the early years. he was absent much of the time, working as a railway postal clerk. I do remember my father holding me in this arms on our open back porch on a winter day, we saw a rabbit sitting in the nearby garden, and Dad scooped some snow from the railing, and threw it at the rabbit.
Another vision; my three year old world closed in by a wire fence. No way out. Across the street was Aunt Dell and Uncle Joe’s house where the COOKIE JAR was full! The gate was locked. Shake it! No way, it wouldn’t open. So there was only one way to go. Over the top. Up the wire, rung by rung. Teetering at the top. Falling over into the deep grass. Never looking for traffic (actually several cars a day). Across the street and to Aunt Dell’s. My first chewing out that I remember.
We moved from Duvall when I was late three or early four. It was a move from the clean country evnironment to the big city of Columbus. It was a multiethnic area, as within a few city clocks one could find a large railroad switching years, manufacturing plants and offices, and a major housing area for african americans. Our neighborhood was a mix of all races and colors. Directly across the street lived a bootlegger, (it was a thriving business in the 1920’s). The whole area was constantly coated with coal dust and soot, due to the train traffic. I remember the frequent washing to keep clean. 820 Gladden Road was the address. The house had a light tan brick first floor with wood siding second floor. When we moved there was no garage, but Herman and Dad built one on the back of the 40x100 lot. I remember sitting in the grass with our collie Ted, and watching them build the garage. Ted suffered the fate of most city dogs, being hit by a car. [Jen: guess they never heard of a leash]
Other things I remember:
Stealing cigars from neighbors garage
Being nasty to Tailor
Going to Bar Mitsvah for Howard Jacobs
Watching Italian neighbors make tomato sauce
Fighting
Playing in the dirt/sand with toy trucks
Always climbing trees and getting spanked
Portable schoolhouse for 1st grade
Second grade in new brick school
Failing second grade spelling
Chum Ed Murphy
Charlene Martin mother’s black step, it’s in the trash, Ed & I
Herman’s job at Quick Foto works
Herman’s model T; I start to drive at 6, almost over Herman
Uncle Simeon and Uncle John
Lake Erie and Harbor View, first fishing with dad.
First bike, wood wheels, no tires
Peanut butter factory, candy factory, Esthers Restaurant
Running away from home with the dog, Peggy
Rollerskating on the paved streets
Visiting the Koch’s on the farm, their garden and the horses
Hunting at age 5 and 6 with Dad at Koch’s and Marysville
First lessons in hunting, into the briar patch! Still hunting for squirrels. Stevens favorite breakdown 22 cal. rifle.
Visiting Washington DC, Virginia and civil war battlefields (swords)
Trips to Parkersburg, WV, so many relatives!
Trips to Jacksonburg, WV, in the old studebaker touring sedan, folding tip and izingglass button shut windows, hand operated windshield wiper.
Dad driving three miles up the creek bed to reach Grandpa Hays house.
Down to Chillicothe to see Mr. Fergesson. His tiny houise high on a hill, by a church. The yard around his house was overgrown with bushes and trees. He was divorced, a thing very uncommon in those days. He had found many odd ppieces of wood, some shaped like animals, and several like snakes, or dragons. Of course he had painted them to accentuate features that were scary, at least to small children like me and also to many ladies! He had been born during the civil war years, and would take his old concertina (upon the least provocation) and play tunes like ‘John Browns body lies moulding in a grave’, when he visited our house, I can remember the dogs howling at the noise.”
After the Air force, they moved to Maine, where they had been stationed for a time. Bill developed an interest in painting, and riding bicycles, so he put the two together. As he’s riding, he carries some supplies with him, so he can sketch, paint, or take a picture to later put on canvas. He also likes to “recycle computers”.
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Notes from William Shepard:
My father named for William Buchanan who sent him thru higher education and he became a teacher then.
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June 12, 1994
Dear Brandon Shepard:
It was exactly 52 years ago, on June 12, 1942, that I went into the US Army Air Corps during World War II. Perhaps when we visit next fall-winter? We can have some stories about those years.
I still spend much of my time working in the workshop. Mostly fixing bicycles. Lately it has been for the Somalian and Vietnamese refugees that live in Portland, Maine, They can’t afford cars yet. Now that school is out for summer what will you be doing?
We read and enjoyed Brandon’s letter, especially the story. I’ll bet he could be a writer if he wanted to. I remember that I wanted to write stories when I was young but I never tried hard enough. A few weeks ago I read in a book, that if a person wants to be a writer they need to read a lot, then practice writing everyday. Well I just didn’t try.
If you look on the chart I sent, one of your oldest relatives was my great grandfather, Hartley
Shepard. He was your g-g-g-g-grandfather! His father brought him and his three brothers, to Baltimore Maryland just after 1800. They came from a small village just north of London, England. One brother stayed in Baltimore and two brothers went to Virginia. After he grew up Hartley moved to Ohio, then to West Virginia. [Jen: None of this is true]
One of Hartley’s sons was Elza my grandfather. I remember father saying Hartley Shepard won a bet that his foxhorn, it could be heard 5 miles away! He did something other than hunt foxes though, as he and my grandfather Elza worked with steam engine and machinery (like threshing machines - steam boats.)
I don’t have any pictures of Hartley Shepard. My grandfather was Elza Shepard. He married Jane Buchannan. and here is a picture of them with Grandmother holding me. I was three or four years old then. The boy at the bottom was my cousin Brooks Shepard. Grandma and Grandpa were about 80 years old then in 1924. Grandmother died about that time. Grandpa visited us often. Like all the Shepard men he lost his memory as he reached mid 80’s. He liked to walk, and when we lived on a farm (in the 1930’s) he was walking down a railroad track nearby, and the train engineer saw him and stopped the train to avoid hitting him. The sheriff of the county brought him home and told us to keep grandpa off the railroad tracks!!
My father (your g-g-grandfather) was one of 12 children. He and I also was named after his mothers father William Atkinson Buchanan. It gets complicated doesn’t it? Anyhow His grandpa Buchanan insisted that my father get a good education. In those days that meant going to school beyond the 6th grade!! So my father was the only one in his family to get an education. He went to normal school (which was a school for teacher) after finishing 8th grade. My father taught school for several years in Jacksonburg West Virginia, where some of his students were my aunts and uncles in my mothers family. That is where he met my mother, Rachel Ann Hayes.
Father was an accountant, or bookkeeper after he taught school. He worked in a steel mill in Parkersburg, West Virginia. Then he became a railway postal clerk and supervisor in the US Postal Service for most his life (in fact for 40 some years). He worked away from home, traveling in a railway postal car, just behind the steam engine! it was just like a little post office and built to pick up and drop off mail (in canvas bags) at towns along the railroad track. All without stopping the train. You see, they had a big iron hook to catch the bags of mail along the train track............
The Hays were among the very first settlers in this area, along with Morgan Lou Wetzel another more famous frontiersman. As you can read the Indians killed many of the Hays and captured Billy Dragoo. The area involved is where I spent much of my childhood and some of my teen years. My very first job after high school was in a logging camp near Jacksonburg (Lot, Va) Dad Shepard drove us up the Buffalo Run Creek bed for 5 or 6 miles to the old home place. There were no roads or only log trails in the early 1920’s.
It is of interest that the Minnesota branch of the Hays family finally contacted the part left behind and furnished much of the information we have.
I’m going to write down all the stories my relatives told me about the “old timers” and send them later. But I don’t want to hold this information now.
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Hello Brandon,
We can write letters now that you are growing older. Grandma Lois says that letters are better than telephone calls, as we can save them to read, and remember things that might be forgotten. Anyhow, today I want to tell you about your great-grandparents when they were your age.
Both of us were born and grew up in Ohio, (which), as you probably know, is several thousand miles from San Diego. When we were born many people lived on farms. Your grandmother’s family lived first in Huntersburgh, Ohio then moved to Texas........on a farm in Wellsville Ohio where your great great grandfather, Mont Shaw had more than 100 diary cattle, they were Jersey cows. Beautiful and gentle, and they gave rich milk that made good cream and butter. Your grandmother Lois had an older brother John and older sisters, Evelyn, Gertrude and Margaret. She had two younger sisters Nancy and Mary. They all grew up ??? Nancy who...
One of the things your great grandmother Lois remembers is when she was one year old she climbed up a tall tree when no one was watching.
Your grandmother remembers that their house was not heated very well in the cold winters, and she liked to take apples to eat in her bedroom while she was reading under many warm covers. She also liked to get her fathers rubber boots and raincoat and walk outside in the fields when it was raining.
While grandmother was growing up on a farm, I was living with my parents, about twenty five miles to the south. I was born in Duvall, Ohio.
Duvall was a very small town with one street. It was only the size of one city block. It had about 30 families living in the small wood houses. There was a small schoolhouse, a general store and post office combined and a large building that was called a granary, where the farmers sold their corn and wheat, and where it was put in boxcars on the railroad to be shipped about 5 miles to Columbus.
I remember a Christmas morning, when I was three years old, when I awoke and came down the stairs to the living room. I could see a toy train going around a track. It wasn’t an electric one, as we didn’t have electricity then, but it had a wind up-key on the side. I was a very happy boy.
I also remember visiting an older couple that we called. Aunt Dell and Uncle Joe Shannon. They were not really my Uncle and Aunt - but we always called them that. Uncle Joe always let me play (or work) in his workshop which was a wonderful place - hammers, saws, carpenter tools with all the wood and nails that I could use. Aunt Dell had a big jar that was always full of the largest best raisin sugar cookies, In my memory, I can still taste them.
We moved to Columbus when I was about 4 years old.
I missed Uncle Joe and Aunt Dell, but Columbus was full of many new things. We lived in a very busy neighborhood - with nearby railroad switching yards and big factories and stores. There were many families who had just arrived in the United States - They were called immigrants and they were from all different countries. So the children I grew up with were African, Spanish, Hungarian, German, Polish, Jewish and a real mixture we were.
I had one brother (no sisters) - my brother Herman, was almost like an uncle as he was 12 years older than me.
Several years after we moved from Duvall into the city, my brother was finishing high school and he began to work. When I was 7 he began working for the Ford Motor Co. making model T and Model A Fords. Then is when he started flying.
I think I told you some about the old “Jenny” - and here is a picture of my brother getting ready to fly it. This was in 1928. ....airplane I had seen up close It was build of mostly wood, and he was covering the body (it was called a fuselage) with silk cloth and fixing the engine. He told Herman that he had bought the airplane from a surplus dealer for $75.00.
Herman wanted to buy one right away, but he had to save the money first, and it wasn’t long until he saved the money and bought the “Jennie”. he borrowed a truck and hauled home the airplane in crates and all boxed up, and it was brand new! A Jennie left over from World War I 1918. The label on the large fuselage box said CURTIS JN-4, OX-5 ENGINE .
That was the day the world changed for our Shepard family.
I was 8 years old and flying with him on weekends to county fairs and “barn storming”, which means we would land in someone’s farm pasture and I would sell tickets. Herman would take the people up for 5 minute airplane rides for $2.00 each! At the end of the weekend we would fly home and me back to school, Herman to work.
There are hours of flying stories to tell, but they can wait for our visit. I was very fortunate to be getting to fly when I was so young and continuing until my 50’s.
Now this letter is getting almost too fat to put in an envelope. So I’m going to stop for now. And if you want me to tell you the next part, I will continue if you will write me about what you did while you were growing up.
That is what letter writing is all about, it is really talking together.
Until next time,
Love,
Great Grandpa Shepard
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...When Great grandmother Lois and I come to visit you (perhaps next year) I’ll tell you some stories about the old people in our family. Some of them came from Scotland and Ireland 200 years ago.
Anyhow, I told you about g-g-grandmother Dick and g-g-grandfather Dad, Herman and I moving from the little town to the big city. We would go bak many times to visit Uncle Joe and Aunt Dell, and when we did I ate many more of her big raisin cookies!
There were great things about living in the city like more kids to play with and many trees to climb (more spankings!) As I grew older, my brother Herman started taking me different places with him. When still in high school he bought a Model T ford, and had a job working for a film developing company. Each day he had a route picking up, and delivering film. When he stopped to do business he would often turn off the motor of the Model T Ford and he had to crank the engine with a Z hand crank to get it started. He let me sit in the drivers seat to push the levers when he was in front of the car cranking the engine. One time I had my foot o n the wrong pedal, and when the car started it almost ran him over!
At that time they didn’t allow liquor or beer to be sold. It was against the law and they called in Prohibition, but there were people that would make and sell “whiskey”, wine and beer. These people were called “bootleggers”. I suppose they must have worn big rubber boots and hide bottles of whiskey in the boots to sell without the police knowing about it. Just across the street from where we lived was a bootlegger. They had a big mean police dog that would chase us kids if we even walked near their house. But after a while the police caught them and put them in jail, and the big dog disappeared.
I forget if I told you about the peanut butter factory and the candy factory (old people forget a lot). I’ll tell you about it anyhow!
Several blocks from our house near the railroad was a factory area and in it was a peanut butter factory! The doors and windows were often open so we could see inside. Big bags of peanuts were put in kettles (a dozen kids could have fit into one kettle). Then they would mash the peanuts, heat them, add other ingredients and then the peanuts were changed into peanut butter. Then they put it into jars and packed them into boxes to be sent away on a truck. Sometimes a horse and wagon would haul it away. Each evening they would take the kettles to the rear of the factory and clean them out, dumping chunks of peanut butter on the ground. Then they took the kettles back inside to wash for the next day. Us kids would get some of the peanut butter that didn’t have dirt on it and eat it. My mother never knew about it.
The candy factory was a little farther down the street. I never saw them actually make the candy. All us kids could see in one window when we stood on the tips of our toes. We would see the workers putting cream filled chocolates into boxes. We must have looked hungry because they would bring a handful of chocolates over and hand them out the window. Somehow we knew not to do it too often. But it sure was a good deal. They don’t make chocolate creams that way any more.
Our family always had many visiting relatives either someone was at one house or we would be driving 100-200 miles to see my father or mother’s brothers and sisters and their families. Mother had 9 brothers and sisters and most of them had many children. Father had ore, I think 11 or 12 brothers and sisters, but several had died. Many times relatives would after I had gone to bed and they would wake me up to move me to the living room couch or the floor, so an uncle and aunt could use my bed.
In the summer a large group of Shepards and Hays would often......
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Note:
Florence R?sset has mixed up some names - influenced no doubt by incomplete records in Minnesota concerning Ezra Ellis who really did go to Minnesota with the Hays - (from Brown Co. Ohio) in 1969[?]. He accompanied them to Minnesota and then walked back to Lot. (Jacksonburg, WVa now) Va. My mother, Rachel Ann Hays, has told me of her grandfather’s (Ezra Ellis) trip & walk back to Lot.
Also Ezra Ellis married Rachel George - (not Georgeria Rachel) - George is/was a large family group near Lot. I remember the George family as I played with - (& fought with) one of the George boys my age - as I did with Ellis Ezra's.
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1920 - 2014 (94 years)
