Carey, Charles Henry.  "History of Oregon." Vol. 3. Chicago-Portland: Pioneer
Historical Pub. Co., 1922.  pp. 297-8.

GEORGE SHEPPARD

George Sheppard, a prominent orchardist of the Hood River valley and one who has
devoted much time to civic affairs, serving at the present as county
commissioner of Hood River county, makes his home at Odell. He is a native of
London, England, his birth having there occurred in 1883, his parents being Job
and Eliza J. (Burden) Sheppard, who crossed the Atlantic to the new world in
1888. The father was a lumberman and sawmill owner in England and upon coming
to America pursued the same line of business. He first settled in Indiana and it
was there that George Sheppard acquired his early education, which he afterwards
continued in the Miami University at Oxford, Ohio, an institution that has
trained some of America's most eminent men, including ex-President William
Howard Taft. Following his graduation from Miami Mr. Sheppard went to work in
connection with his father's lumber business and was thus employed for seven
years. On the expiration of that period he started out to look for a home of his
own in 1908 and found Hood River valley a most enchanting place. The same year
he purchased an orchard on Willow flats, near Odell, a section that seemed to be
the best in the valley. Mr. Sheppard also was interested in the Pine Grove Box
Company for the manufacture of fruit boxes but discontinued that industry to
devote his entire time and attention to fruit raising. In the latter he has been
extremely successful and by reason of his broad experience and comprehensive
study of scientific methods is enabled to speak with authority upon many matters
relating to fruit growing in this section.

Mr. Sheppard has also given much time to public interests and has won the
goodwill of his neighbors and citizens of the valley to an unusual degree. He
has never held public office, always declining political preferment until 1920,
when the republican voters of the county were seeking a candidate for county
commissioner who would not only have the goodwill of the people but would serve
all parts of the county with equal fairness and they selected Mr. Sheppard as
the candidate for the office, recognizing in him a man of broad vision and of
the strictest integrity.

In 1913 Mr. Sheppard was united in marriage to Miss Evelyn Bell, a daughter of
F. O. Bell of Red Lion, Colorado, a prominent lumberman and cattle raiser of
that section and a dominant spirit of Red Lion. Mr. and Mrs. Sheppard have two
children: George Howard and Margaret Evelyn. Mr. Sheppard is a member of the
Masonic fraternity, has attained the Knight Templar degree and is a Noble of the
Mystic Shrine. His wife is a Daughter of the Nile, the woman's auxiliary of the
Shrine. Mr. Sheppard has built for the family a handsome bungalow in the town of
Odell, where a warm welcome at all times awaits their many friends. He is a
leader in every way and though modest and unassuming is a man of broad vision,
forceful in defense of public interests and at all times his aid and influence
are given on the side of right, progress and improvement.



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Submitted to the Oregon Bios. Project in November 2006 by Jeffrey L. Elmer. 
Submitter has no additional information about the person(s) or family mentioned
above.