I am so sorry to hear of Jane's passing.  I was a good friend of her daughter Paula since High School and stood in Paula and David Brinkley's wedding.  Jane was a very sweet lady and was always at the party's Paula and David gave. I was at the Heights Funeral Home on the 19th because my mother passed away that day.  I saw the name up on the board but did not realize it was Jane.  My deepest sympathies for your family.

Jane was a very special lady, who had a heart of gold and was always willing to lend a hand.  A very kind and sweet woman, one who will be dearly missed. Rest in Peace "Miss Jane".

I'm so very sorry to hear of the loss of your mother, Bob and Janice.  My deepest sympathies.  I'm thinking of you both and all your family members.  You are in my heart and in my prayers.

So sorry to get this news.  Jane was always so positive and such a great lady in every respect.  She will be missed greatly by all her friends.  I'm glad I got to know her.  RIP dear Jane, Godspeed.
Your friend, W.F. Bud Hamilton

I sent to all her friends in Tx. Ark and Delaware that I know she emailed or befriended. The Mathes, Owings, Thompson, Fulmer an all I had in my computer that I knew she touched.

I would call her and say I can't figure out a crochet stich and she would get a piece of yarn work what I told her  the she would tell me what I did wrong. Same thing on the computer  she could walk me thru any problem I had. She always called and emailed me about the NASCAR RACES  then call to remind me to watch.
I called her 3 times a day and she would email me if she wanted me to call her so she would not wake Richard up.

She always told me about Bobs place, how nice it was and about his pecan trees and that the view from his place in Brownwood was beautiful and how much she loved him.

Jane will be missed by more people than the Gov. of Texas or the Pres. of the U.S. because she never lied and talked from the shoulder. She will live for ever in the hearts of anyone who knew her.

The Ladies Auxiliary to VFW Post 8790 will miss Jane, and we extend our deep sympathy for your loss. 

                                                                        Carolyn Narron
                                                                         Auxiliary Chaplain
                                                                          LAVFW Post 8790

Tribute to James Willie, “Jane” Murphy Garrett Sheppard:

James Willie, “Jane” Murphy came into the world on a sweltering hot day on May 30th in 1924.

 

It was a hot day that Friday and since there was no air conditioning in 1924, the windows were all open and there was an old window fan sucking dusty air through the house to make the hot humid air feel a little cooler.

 

Emma, the 21 year old wife of William Travis Murphy was full term in her first pregnancy.  Emma and Willie, as she called her husband, were hoping that their first issue would be a boy. They would name him James Willie Murphy; James after Emma's father, James Durnin, who had passed away at the tender age of 27 from consumption or tuberculosis, and Willie in honor of her strapping good looking Irish husband. They never considered the child being a girl; they just knew it was going to be a boy.  As we all know, the child was a girl and Emma and Willie named her James Willie, but called her Jane.

 

The real reason why they gave this pretty little girl the name, James Willie, has been lost to history, but an Irish tale of some truth has been circulated.  Like all good Irish tales, at least parts of the tale are true; we just do not know which parts.

 

Emma's family, the Durnin clan, had emigrated from County Louth in Ireland to the United States right after the great Potato Famine.  They boarded a “coffin” ship in Dublin on All Hallows Eve 1859 for the eight week trans-Atlantic voyage.  The ship arrived at the Port of New Orleans on New Year's Day 1860.

 

From New Orleans they took a small steam ship across Ponchatrain Lark, through South Pass to Lake Manchac and up the Tickfaw River to the town of Springfield, Louisiana.  From Springfield they went by horse drawn wagons to Irishtown in the rural area of Saint Helena parish where they settled on a farm bought from a cousin, John Durnin, who had preceded them to America.

 

This cousin, John Durnin, was a successful business man in New Orleans, but had married a Sharkey girl from Saint Helena parish so he traveled between Irishtown and New Orleans.  The Sharkey family had seven daughters.  The new immigrants started marrying the seven Sharkey sisters as they became of age.  This made a large extended family and all were happy until they started having children.

 

Over time, it became apparent that all the second born girls died in infancy.  The blood science of the “RH” factor had not been discovered yet, so the very superstitious Irish immigrants blamed these deaths on the Leprechauns.

 

By the time James Willie was born, it was a common misconception in the Durnin-Sharkey clan that the Leprechauns “stole” all the newborn girls in the family.  When Emma learned that she had delivered a girl, she was panic stricken wondering how she could keep the Leprechauns from stealing her little girl.

 

Her scheme to save the little girl was to trick the Leprechauns into thinking she had delivered a boy.  So she gave the little girl a boy's name and dressed her as a boy until she was nine years old.

 

Now, as mentioned before, all good Irish tales are part true.  It is now up to you to figure out which parts of this tale are true.

 

When James Willie's mother Emma was a young girl she was afflicted with what they thought was typhoid fever, but was probably polio. Her bowed legs required her to be in a wheelchair.  She was in her wheelchair going to the post office when she met her future husband, who carried her up the stairs of the post office and then pushed her home in her wheelchair.   She was in her wheelchair throughout her pregnancy and while James Willie was an infant.  When her daughter learned to crawl, her mama would crawl on the floor with her; when she learned to pull herself up on a table, her mama would pull herself up on the table too.  Pretty soon both toddler and mama learned to walk!  James Willie was the apple of Emma's and Willie's eyes for the next two and a half years until her little sister, Almalea, was born in December of 1926.  Things took a dramatic turn in Jane's life at that time.  She not only had a little sister, but they had moved from the rural area in Robert, Louisiana to the city life of Hammond, and her grandma Tootsie came to live with them.  Grandma Tootsie was sick, so Emma had to take care of a two year old Jane, a newborn Almalea, and a sick Mother.  Before Jane could ride a tricycle, she was a care-provider and nurse.  That early training helped her throughout her entire life.

 

Jane was five years old when The Great Depression paralyzed the economy of the United States and the entire World.  Times were hard and everyone had to do without during the depression.  Instead of being a spoiled child, Jane was a precocious child acting more like a little woman that a kid.  To help take some of the burden off Emma and Jane, Almalea went to live with her aunt Minnie, Emma's sister and only sibling.  Alma lived with her aunt Minnie until Grandma Tootsie passed away in about 1935.

 

Jane became a normal little girl again after grandma Tootsie died.  She loved the attention she received from her mother and daddy and the admiration of her kid sister.  She loved dressing up and wearing those big slips and dresses the Southern Belles wore in the Deep South.  She was smart and was a good student.  She made friends easily and she and her friends loved sitting on the grass in the summer with their big wide dresses spread out in a giant circle around their tiny bodies.  Jane and her many friends would spend hours sitting on the grass talking about the boys.  These were happy time for Jane despite the continuing depression.  It did not make her feel bad that she did not have a lot of worldly possessions; no one at this time had any luxuries.

 

High School years were fun for Jane.  Being very smart and being good at typing, short-hand, and math made her very popular with the girls who were challenged at math and sciences.  Boy, boys, and more boys was the topic of conversation with the girls in high school.  “Joe was so good looking.  Tommy had a crush on Mary.  I wonder if I should say hi to Raymond when we pass in the hall?”  This was the major conversations of the girls.

 

School and Church were the major social functions for Jane, but that new dance, the jitter-bug, was stimulating her interest.  She was glad those “flappers” were gone and that syncopated jazz was the devil's music.  She loved to dance and could be heard humming or singing in a soft voice as she walked to and from school.  She loved those street dances they had during the summer and occasionally, she would sneak off with her girlfriends and go to “The Cave”, a nightclub on the highway between Hammond and Ponchatoula, the next town.  Life was simple and good for Jane, but there were rumors of impending war in the air.

 

Jane graduated from Hammond High School in May of 1941 and took off for the “City”, New Orleans.  She was going to be on her own in a big city.  Making her own money and spending it all on herself and not worrying what her Mother would say about those dresses being to full and frilly.

 

Jane did not have any trouble finding a job in the big city.  Her typing, short-hand, and bookkeeping skills were a desired commodity and people were begging for a good secretary and bookkeeper even though the depression was only a year or two in the past.  Times were good and there were plenty of places for a 17 year old girl to find amusement: Saenger Theater, Audubon Park, the Lake Front, and of course the French Quarter.

 

Then on December 5, 1941, all hell broke loose.  The Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and the United States entered the war.  New Orleans, with its Army, Navy, and Air force bases became a major port of debarkation for young men going off to war.  This sudden influx of young military men was not lost on Jane.  She observed these young men walking down Canal Street and Saint Charles Avenue.  Jane became a vital member of the G.I. Janes.  She and other young girls ran the offices, plants, and businesses as the young men went off to war.

 

The rationing during the war was worse than anything she had seen during the Great Depression.  There were no tires for the cars; no gas for the automobiles; and worse than all that, there were no nylon stockings.  War was hell, not only on the front in Europe, Africa, and Japan, but in the shops of New Orleans.

 

The war drug on for four long years and Jane and the rest of the country was excited when the war was over and our young men came home.  Some of these guys had left home as teenagers still wet behind the ears and returned war hardened fighters and cynical men.  Jane had aged and also matured during the war years.  She began thinking about getting married and starting a family.

 

Jane started dating and after a few years of misses and near misses she met a big Texan by the name of Robert Nelson Garrett, Jr., known as Bob.  She and Bob hit it off.  Like all Texans, he thought Texas was heaven on earth.  Jane listened to him talk about Texans like Sam Houston, Colonel Travis, and a transplanted Texan named Jim Bowie who had invented a special type of knife.  She heard stories about the cities of Beaumont, Houston, Midland, Amarillo, and Bob's home town, San Antonio.

 

These stories of Texas and Bob's country charm won Jane over and on June 17, 1948 Jane and Robert Nelson Garrett, Jr. were married and moved to Beaumont, Texas.

 

In Beaumont Jane worked for the telephone company as an operator before she and Bob moved to Houston.  In early 1950 Jane discovered she was pregnant and on Monday October 23, 1950, Robert Nelson Garrett, III arrived in Texas splendor.  Two years later Laura Pauline Garrett was born.

 

Houston was like a dream come true for Jane.  It was bigger than life with bigger than life people.  If New Orleans was a Utopia, Houston was Heaven.  It did not take Jane long to become a full-fledged Texan.  She started talking differently.  Instead of the quite voice of a Southern Belle, Jane spoke with a Texas drawl.  To Jane everything in Texas was big.  They were the biggest state in the U.S.A. at the time and Jane did not let you forget that.

 

Jane found a job in downtown Houston for a Mr. Frye, an actuary and before long Jane was also an actuary.  Jane spent most of her days calculating insurance rate for the big insurance companies.  Apparently, Mr. Frye did not like going to meetings or conventions, because after a year with Mr. Frye, Jane went all over the country to seminars, meetings, and conventions for Mr. Frye.  Jane loved all the traveling, but most of all she loved meeting new people.  If there was a group of people gathered together to eat, talk, and have fun, Jane wanted to be there.  She was a people person and loved meeting new people and getting to know them.  She never met a stranger; only a friend she did not know yet.

 

Sometime in the very early 1960's, Gulf Oil Company commenced construction on a new skyscraper in Downtown Houston.  It was the tallest building in the state of Texas at the time.  Mr. Frye signed a lease on a new suite of offices in the Gulf Oil building before it was even started.  Jane was very excited about having an office in the new skyscraper.  All she talked about for months was her new office.  Then one weekend when the frame of the building was about 85% complete a freak wind storm came through Houston and the entire building collapsed into a big pile of rubble.  For the first and only time in Jane's life, she was frightened.  She mentioned that she was not afraid for herself, but what would happen to Robert and Pauline if the building collapsed again while she was in the building.

 

On November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was assisnated in Dallas.  This upset Jane.  She had compassion for the young widow and her two small children.  Then one year and one day later tragedy struck her family; her beloved husband, Bob passed away on November 23, 1964.

 

Bob was laid to rest in San Antonio in the adjacent plot in which she will be laid to rest Monday afternoon.  Jane was devastated.  She was left with two teenage children to raise and a job she had to work at to support the family.  Yet, after the gravesite service, Jane forced herself to play host and tour guide and show us around San Antonio.  She knew that there was a chance that some of us would never be in San Antonio again and wanted us to see the Alamo, the River walk, and other fantastic sights in San Antonio, Bob's hometown.

 

Love found Jane again and she met another Bob, Bob Sheppard.  Smaller and more gregarious than Bob Garrett, Bob Sheppard proved to be a good match for Jane.  The both loved people and being in the middle of a large crowd.  Jane and Bob Sheppard were married on June 1, 1968 in Las Vegas.

 

Jane retired from working as an actuary when Mr. Frye closed his office.  This gave Jane and Bob time to do other things and to travel.  They became involved in the EAA, the Experimental Aircraft Association and every year they made their way to Oshkosh, Wisconsin to the EAA annual fly-in.  During this weekend, the airport in Oshkosh had more planes take off and land that any other airport in the world.  It was a wonderful time for Jane and Bob.  They met and became long-time friends with people for all over the country.  They looked forward to meeting up with their new friends every year at the fly-in.  Jane became the unofficial hostess of the Texas delegation.  

 

Another passion of Jane and Bob was the VFW, Veteran of Foreign Wars.  They attended the local, regional, and state meetings and Jane was elected President of the Women's auxiliary several times.  Whether it was a fund raiser, chilicook-off, or just a monthly meeting, Jane took charge of the event and made everyone welcome and feel important.                                   

 

You would not think a petite senior citizen would be as interested in as many diverse activities as Jane was interested in, but she filled her life with all kinds of crafts, shooting, meetings, travels, more meetings, visiting friends and relatives, and more meetings.

 

She made ceramics, needle works, and read.  How she found the time to do all these things is a mystery.  She was more active in retirement than she ever was while working.  If you needed to spread the word about an event or a cause, call Jane.  If you needed someone to organize a fundraiser, call Jane.  And while doing all these things, she never lost sight of her most important interest, her beloved children and grandchildren.  

 

Robert and Pauline were the focal point of her existence and her two grandsons, Jeffery and Cody, and her granddaughter Sarah were not far behind.  She was so proud of all of them.

 

Tragedy struck again when on October 3, 2001 Bob Sheppard passed away.  With the support of her children, grandchildren, and friends, Jane managed by herself again.  She and her daughter Pauline became very close and then the most devastating event of her life occurred – Pauline was diagnosed with stage four ovarian cancer.  Pauline passed away on March 24, 2005.

 

Jane was the eldest of nine children.  All of her five sisters and three brothers looked up to her and she was unquestionably her daddy's little girl.  Even when Jane was 65 years old and Willie was 88, she was his little girl.  Willie's eyes would light up whenever he say Jane and even the news that she would be coming for the weekend would bring a smile to his face.  

 

As one of her sisters said, “ She devoted her life to her family and doing volunteer work.  She is loved and will be greatly missed by everyone whose life she has touched.”  

 

Jane was unique in her own quirky way.  She made people around her feel alive and made them feel good about themselves.  She saw a lot of history.  She was one of the “Lost Generation” as coined by Fitzgerald and Hemingway.  She lived through prohibition, the Jazz age, the Great Depression, World War II, the Korean Conflict, the Civil Rights Movement, Vietnam, the Kennedy assignation, watched Jack Ruby shoot and kill Lee Harvey Oswald on live T.V., she saw a man land on the moon on T.V., she witnessed a second Kennedy, Robert, killed in California.  She saw the hippies and the Summer of Love, the oil embargo, two Gulf wars and the war in Afghanistan.  

 

She saw the invention of the television, the microwave oven, the clothes washer and dryer, the computer, cell phones, jet airplanes, the atomic bomb, panty hose, portable radios, plastic bottles, the astrodome, the Interstate Highway System, CD players, and the ball point pen.

 

She lived a remarkable life in a remarkable time.  I am glad I knew her – she was my older sister.

_________________________________________________________________________________

EARL MURPHY

So sorry to learn of the passing of Jane..she was a wonderful Lady and will be greatly missed by the Ladies Auxiliary to the VFW...God's blessing for her family.

Jane was so amazing! I have so many wonderful memories. My heart goes out to you Bob.

I have lots of wonderful memories as a kid and adult ..U will truly be missed.. Robert my heart goes out to u and ur family.. Love y'all Rose Marie

OBITUARIO

James Willie "Jane" Murphy Garrett Sheppard

30 mayo, 1924 – 16 enero, 2014

Heights Funeral Home

Muestre su apoyo

Comparta Un Recuerdo

Comparta
Un Obituario

Obtenga actualizaciones

Servicios