James and Caroline
James Alford Shepard was born to Calvin and Nancy Shepard on October 5th 1846. Caroline McCleary was born on May 30th, 1853 to John and Elizabeth Houseman McCleary.
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| James Alford Shepard |
In the 1850 US Census James Alford is living in his father and mother's household, he was 6 at this time. His dad Calvin was 30 and mom Nancy was 29. Sister Sarah was 8 and brother Preston was 6, All living in Russell, Kentucky.
In the 1860 US Census they have now migrated to Pike County Indiana Monroe Township. Caroline is 7 years old living in the house hold of her parents John and Elizabeth McCleary. Caroline's siblings in the home are Naomi McCleary age 5 born 1855,Mary A is 2 years old born 1858. John is 30 and listed as farmer and her mother is 26 working in the home.
James and Caroline were married April 30th, 1868 in Pike County Indiana.
In the US Census of 1870 Pike County Indiana Monroe Township has James age is 23 and Caroline is 17. Also in the home is baby Viola Shepherd age 1. Next door lives John McCleary and Elizabeth Houseman McCleary. They have several children still in the home, Mary is 13 born 1857, Luvina is 7 born 1863 and Margret is 6 born in 1864.
You will notice the various spellings of "Shepard" as you read this, it's all the same family. When the Enumerator's take the census info and document it on the paper, hand writing can be very hard to read and understand.
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| Caroline McCleary |
In the 1890 Pike County Indiana Monroe Township Census, James A age 53 and Caroline age 47, children still in the home are Emma age 22 and James age 17.
Caroline died December 11th 1915, she was 62. She had Huntington's. James died Feb 1908, he was 61. They are both buried at the Spurgeon Cemetery in Spurgeon, Monroe Township, Pike County, Indiana.
Caroline's and James's children:
Emma Mae Shepard 1878-1929 married William Thomas Jordan 1870-1944 on March 27th 1901.
Biography of Wilbur Kitchener Jordan
Carl Eugene Shepard born 1921
This is all based on memory. I have very little in the way of family records -- a couple of newspaper obituaries and that sort of thing. There is no one else alive who can reconstruct all this.
A couple of notes: my nephew, John Shepard, who lives in Spring Valley, MN, was doing research on the McHenry side of the family, going back from Nancy McHenry who married Calvin Shepard. John wanted to establish that a James McHenry who was a delegate from Maryland to the Constitutional Convention the same person as a James McHenry in our line. But no one has ever been able to make that connection. John was going to western Missouri last summer to try to look up some tombstones. I was too sick just then -- recovering from a mitral valve replacement -- that I was not able to tell him that Nancy McHenry married a Rev. Themus Taylor and is buried in the Spurgeon cemetery under “Taylor.” Now, tragically, John has been diagnosed with lymphoma and the last I heard he was not doing well at all. John had told me that he was in touch with someone “out west” who was doing similar research -- maybe that is you.
It has troubled me all my life that I knew nothing of the family of my father’s brother, John. Now this helps out a lot. (my daughter printed pages for me from your website.)
WITH ALL KINDEST BEST WISHES,
Carl E. Shepard
105 Perry St
Mt. Carmel, IL 62863
CARL E. SHEPARD, born October 23, 1921, near Spurgeon, in Monroe Township/Pike County, Indiana.
These notes are intended as a “family tree,” but are rather a personal recollection of my family and Huntington’s Disease.
My parents were JAMES LEMUEL SHEPARD (1882-1967) and EMMA FERGUSON SHEPARD (1881-1961). My father’s parents were JAMES ALFORD SHEPARD and CAROLINE McCLARY SHEPARD. My parents were married in 1906 and for the next two years my mother was the dutiful daughter-in-law, taking care of JAMES A. in his last months of life, suffering from tuberculosis. He died in 1908 and definitely did not have Huntington's Disease (Chorea). It was his wife, CAROLINE, who had this disease.
As she began to have this affliction, my father wanted my mother to take care of her. So they built a room on the back of their house for her bedroom. It turned out to be nearly disastrous. My mother told me many stories, of which the following is typical: One day my mother was going into CAROLINE’S room when CAROLINE, who had been hiding behind a door, came lunging at my mother with a butcher knife. My father’s brother-in-law (more later) took matters into his own hands and had his mother-in-law, my father’s mother, committed to a mental hospital in Evansville, Indiana. It was known for decades as “Woodmere,” but is now called Indiana State Hospital. This caused a rift between my father and William, but it was later healed. CAROLINE died about 1915. I was born in 1921, so I never knew either of my grandparents, but I knew two of CAROLINE’S siblings quite well.
There was a sister (CAROLINES), HARRIET McCLARY ARNOLD, married to a Primitive Baptist minister, JAMES RILE ARNOLD. They “broke up housekeeping,” to use an appropriate old term, at an early age and went to live with a daughter, EDITH ARNOLD HON, who lived in Crossville, Illinois. Aunt HARRIET came to visit my parents in Spurgeon, Indiana, every summer for three or four weeks at a time. Even as a very small boy, I realized that there was something wrong with her. I do remember that what was the last visit she had severe problems. She died with Huntington’s, but I am sure she was not put in an institution. I know of no other children beside Edith.
There was also a brother (CAROLINES), WILLARD McCLARY m ETTA ---? I knew them well, since my parents visited them fairly often on Sunday afternoons. It was a very great shock to me, a young boy, to see him in his condition, with all the typical symptoms of Huntington’s. Etta took care of him until the end, even though it was very hard on her own health. They had four children: (1) JOHN McCLEARY had a Ph.D in psychology and was a partner in a firm of industrial psychologists in Chicago. He and I exchanged letters until his last letter in 1959, which was a rambling raging tirade. I assume his wife had him put in an institution, but I don’t know this. He never mentioned any children. (2) CHLOE McCLARY FRENCH was an elementary school teacher until the onset of her illness. He was committed to Woodmere in Evensville and died there. There were no children. (3) MARGUERITE (SP?) McCLEARY GEORGES lived in Ft. Branch, Indiana. I understand she had Huntington’s but I don’t know anything more. I believe there were children. (4) WOODROW McCLEARY was still living at least until recently in Elberfeld, Ind. He would now, if living, be in his 90s. I think there were no children.
Now there is a gap in my knowledge. Caroline must have had another sister. My father, JAMES L., had a favorite cousin JAMES T. SHEPARD, whom my father called a “double cousin,” meaning that their fathers were brothers and their mothers were sisters. I don’t know if he was the son of Preston Shepard, but I think it is likely. Now that means that Preston (or another brother) married a sister of CAROLINE. I do know that James T did not develop Huntington’s, nor did his son, JAMES S., who was a distinguished lawyer in the Richmond, Indiana, area. But there is the possibility that Huntington’s did exist in some descendant of this branch. There was yet another cousin HARRIET SHEPARD WITHERSPOON, who lived in Vincennes and was likely a daughter of Rice Shepard. She did not have Huntington’s.
One small clue as to the identity of CAROLINE’S father. My own father spoke often, and affectionately, of his “Grandpap” Mclary, although he described him as very odd and a real loner. Only one thing, apparently, would bring him out of his reclusiveness: If he learned of someone in the community who was sick, he would go into his large forest and shoot a squirrel and take it to the family of the sick person, for as they believed then that cooked squirrel soup (ugh!) had wonderful curative powers. (by the way, in my reading of early Tudor English history, I have found that this was believed back then.) Now I have a map of Monroe Township from 1881 and it shows a very large tract of land southeast of Spurgeon as belonging to a “T. McCleary.” Could this be the father? It would be a good starting point to possibly making some connection.
Now I need to finish with a listing of the children of James Alford and Caroline Shepard:
Viola married a WEBB (I think it was Theadore). She died at an early age with Huntington’s There was one son, ORVIS. He lived with my parents for some time and then after marriage settled in Cincinnati. He came fairly often to visit my parents. Then last time he came was obviously a very sick person, and all my father could do was the next morning to take him to a nearby city and put him on a bus directly to Cincinnati. We did not hear from him again, but a few years later learned of his death.
JOHN SHEPARD There must have been a serious, deep family division, because so far as I know my parents never heard from JOHN, saying only that he had “gone west.” And I like wise don;t know that my parents ever tried to communicate with him. I always knew that he had two sons, CARL and FLOYD, but I have no personal knowledge of the entire family. (Note to reader: This is my family line, FLOYD was my grandfather)
EMMA SHEPARD m. WILLIAM JORDAN, a distinguished professor of mathematics at Oakland City College.I remember visiting them with my parents when she was becoming seriously ill with Huntington's. William had her put in Woodmere, where she died in 1928 or 1929. They had two children: WILBER K and EVELYN (GOERLITZ). Wilber was a long-time professor of English History at Harvard and, for twenty years, president of Radcliffe College. He and I were in close touch. He once told me that he and his sister had resolved, early, never to have children, and they did not. Both were spared from Huntington’s Disease.
JAMES LEMUEL SHEPARD m. EMMA FERGUSON. My father must have been fearfully frightened of what might befall him, but he lived to be 84. There were two sons, PAUL ALFORD SHEPARD (1915-2001) and myself. Both of us escaped the disease. Paul married and had two children, but I somehow, gradually decided not to have children. About 1960, when I was nearing 40, doctors began to tell me that I could feel safe since my father did not become ill. I had not yet married, but I did then marry in 1962.
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