The Man Behind the Marble | A Portrait of "Sonny" Sheppard, Jr.

by Valerie Lippe P'25, P'28

A first-time visitor to the lobby of Delone Catholic’s Lawrence B. “Sonny” Sheppard Jr. Memorial Gymnasium, crossing the highly polished terrazzo-tile floor, would immediately notice, on one side, a glass-paneled wall that encloses the cafeteria and, on the other, a brick wall with imposing doorways that lead into the gymnasium. The visitor would also notice that the brick wall is interrupted in the middle by a floor-to-ceiling panel of Italian marble, beige, with flecks of gold, and framed by black marble. But it would require the visitor to stop and take a closer look to see that the flecks of gold were, in fact, gold-leafed letters etched into the stone. And the visitor might, without a thought, pass by the marble panel without bothering to decipher the letters were it not for the bronze bust of a serious-looking young man in front of it and the dates 1922-1949. Even so many years after the fact, the death of a young person is tragic news. Looking for an explanation, the visitor might then read the eulogy on the wall:

“Aware that a memorial is a pitiable substitute for the blessedness of a beloved son’s life and youth and vitality . . .

“That steel and stone are imperfect instruments to symbolize an affection locked too deep in the heart to be given even subtle utterance . . .

“Yet it is our prayerful hope that this building, as a tangible expression of our tender love of a precious son, be the legacy of an abiding love of and concern for others, both his and ours . . .

“And that the dreams and hopes once harbored for him might somehow be fulfilled in those who pass this way and are moved to remember- - -and, in that remembrance, that he be not so much honored as emulated.”

It is a beautiful tribute to a beloved son, but it leaves the visitor with a problem. The last word creates the difficulty. When a person passes from living memory, how does one “emulate” him? The memorial itself contains only the barest facts about him. The marble pedestal on which the bust rests summarizes his life in these spare terms: “executive,” “horseman,” “scholar,” “athlete,” and “pilot.” Nevertheless, it is a place to begin.

“Lawrence Baker Sheppard, Jr.” was too weighty a moniker for a young man, so sometimes he was called “Shepp.” But “Shepp” was also his father so, more often, he was called “Sonny.” Sonny was born on July 22, 1922, the only son of a prosperous Hanover family with harness racing in its blood.  

Sonny’s father, Lawrence B. Sheppard, Sr., was the son of H.D. Sheppard, who partnered with C.N. Myers to form the Hanover Shoe Company, a successful manufacturer and seller of high-quality leather shoes. As a young man, Lawrence, Sr., then a junior partner at Hanover Shoe, had taken over the Company’s fledgling harness horse racing farm, Hanover Shoe Stables, and, rebranding it under the name, Hanover Shoe Farms, turned it into an internationally renowned horse breeding farm. He dedicated much of his life to building up the sport of harness racing. 

Sonny’s mother, Charlotte Cassin Newton Sheppard, grew up in San Antonio, Texas, on her family's ranch, where her father taught her how to hunt and fish. Her biography in the Harness Racing Museum, Hall of Fame, states that “she worked cattle like a seasoned cow hand.” During her lifetime, she was the only woman to have bred a harness racing triple crown winner.  Sonny’s three sisters also were horsewomen, his younger sister Alma, having set a harness racing record at eleven years of age.

Born into such a family, it was natural that Sonny should gain expertise as a horseman and a sportsman. He spent summers at the family’s summer house near Hanover Shoe Farms hunting raccoons, trapping muskrats and skunks, and getting to know the harness racing world. When visiting his grandfather’s ranch in San Antonio, Sonny learned to ride roundup with the cowboys. A classmate at St. Joseph Academy in McSherrystown remembers him riding across the fields to school on his buckskin stallion.  

From a young age, Sonny was comfortable in a sulky, the lightweight cart harnessed to the horse on which the driver sits. He competed in harness racing, first, in fair circuit events and, later, on the Grand Circuit, a group of harness racing stakes races run on one-mile tracks around the country, both for himself and for Hanover Shoe Farms. The Saturday before he died, he competed in an amateur harness race at Rosecroft in Oxon Hill, Md. He also owned several “trotters” that were in training at the time of his death.

Sonny was never a student at Delone Catholic. Instead, for high school, he attended Haverford School in Haverford, Pa., where he competed in varsity track. Local newspapers in 1941 detail the many track events in which he and his four-man relay team took first place in competitions with other top squads around the region.

At the age of sixteen, Sonny first began working at the Hanover Shoe Company, familiarizing himself with the family business by working in a variety of departments.  

In 1942, however, after the entry of the United States into World War II, Sonny chose to enlist in the U.S. Army Air Forces and was called into active service in 1943. In March of 1945, after completing flight training, he served as a pursuit pilot in the European theater. At the time of his discharge from the military in June of 1946, he held the rank of flight officer.  

Upon discharge from the military, Sonny returned to the Hanover Shoe Company. During the three years before his death, he quickly rose to the position of Assistant General Manager while continuing to be “an enthusiastic flier.”  

On the morning of June 15, 1949, a few weeks shy of his 27th birthday, traveling alone, Sonny took off from Roosevelt Field, a former airport in Westbury, Long Island, in a two-seater plane, its sides emblazoned with the name “Hanover Shoe, Inc.” He was returning home to Hanover from Roosevelt Raceway, a harness racing track adjacent to the airport.  

At about 10 a.m., more than halfway into the flight, the plane began to experience engine trouble. Witnesses saw the plane circling several times before finally landing in a cornfield near Radnor, Pa. According to one of the group of nearby residents who came out to meet him, Sonny radioed Patco Field, a small airfield in Norristown, Pa., to get a mechanic to check the engine. What repairs were made was not recorded but just after 12 p.m., Sonny took off from the cornfield.  

According to a witness, the deep furrows in the soil created a rough surface for takeoff and seemed to prevent the plane from accelerating sufficiently to clear the 150 ft. trees at the edge of the cornfield. The witness noted that the plane then dipped sharply in an attempt to gain speed for a better climb. At that moment, witnesses heard the engine stall and then sputter as if the pilot were trying to restart the plane. Then the plane dropped, catching a propeller in an overhead power line, and burst into flames.

If one were seeking a quick biographical sketch, one could stop here with this tragic account of an accomplished and talented young man who was seemingly fearless and possessed a competitive spirit. Yet, one still would not have a clear grasp of the man who was meant to be “emulated.” The eulogy on the marble wall is almost a plea to dig deeper, to hear the stories that people share when they have lost someone they love. 

And now, quite literally, the real picture of Sonny Sheppard begins to emerge. The report of Sonny’s death in the Hanover newspaper, The Evening Sun, contains a photograph of him in military apparel. Unlike the somber-faced bronze bust, the man in the photograph is smiling - not a posed smile for the camera, but a comfortable, wide grin. Not surprisingly, Sonny is remembered as “having a broad smile on his face.”   

In the days following Sonny’s death, the family received a steady stream of visitors and messages of condolence. Hundreds attended his funeral rites. Numerous newspaper reports used adjectives such as “well-known,” “popular,” and "very well-liked” to refer to him. The Evening Sun clarified that Sonny was well-liked “not only in the executive offices but by people in and around the factory.” 

The late Thomas C. Klunk ‘45 wrote an article about Sonny for The Catholic Witness in 1969, at the time of the dedication of the Sheppard Gymnasium. His piece is a collection of memories from those who knew Sonny directly. Sonny is remembered as being “never too busy to pause and say a few words, despite numerous business and sport activities.” Klunk's article included the reflections of an anonymous writer who noted that during his short life, Sonny “had acquired many friends through honesty, fairness, kindness, understanding, generosity, sympathy and friendship.”

“It is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 19:23). Nevertheless, Sonny seems to have gracefully navigated that path with a simple formula: share what you love and pay attention to the needs of others. Sonny loved sports and competition. For several seasons, he sponsored the Hanover AA basketball team, completely outfitting them and often providing them with transportation to games. He served on the general committee that advised the Hanover School Board in building the Sheppard and Myers Athletic Field, a philanthropic endeavor of the Myers and Sheppard families, which was finished shortly after Sonny’s death. Reports indicated that Sonny devoted much time and effort to guiding the completion of this major athletic facility. In the year following his death, in announcing the inauguration of the “Sonny Sheppard Memorial Relays,” an annual track event for high school students named in his honor, the Record Herald noted that “Sonny Sheppard took an intense and active interest in the athletic program of the Hanover schools as well as in community sports.”

Making the world a better place seemed to occupy a large portion of Sonny’s thoughts. Klunk’s piece included the memories of Bill Sherdel, a friend and former classmate of Sonny at St. Joseph Academy in McSherrystown. Sherdel remembered that “Sonny had many plans for the betterment of the community . . . plans that people around here never dreamed of – and not just for Hanover – they would have helped the whole area.”

Yet Sonny’s attention was never so broadly focused that he lost sight of individual needs. Klunk’s article quotes William Melhorn, next door neighbor and close friend of Sonny, as noting that Sonny “was interested in the problems of others and always wanted to be helpful.”  But in his giving, Sonny seemed to follow the admonition of Matthew 6:3 not to let his left hand know what his right hand is doing. According to Melhorn, “he did a great amount of good in Hanover without the people’s knowledge.” He shared a couple of anecdotes. On one occasion, hearing of a little girl who needed surgery to remove her tonsils, Sonny quietly paid for the operation. In another instance, upon learning that the daughter of a Hanover Shoe worker was gifted in music, Sonny bought her a musical instrument. 

“Sonny was a doer” was how Klunk’s article summed up his life. In addition to his work at Hanover Shoe and his harness racing activities, Sonny held other positions of responsibility, for example, taking on the role of general chairman of the Hanover Horse Show Committee. Because of his ability to undertake so many activities at one time, he was described as being, “all over the place.”  

But it was not just what he did, but the way he did it that was remembered. Reverend Anthony McGinley, the celebrant of Sonny’s funeral Mass at Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary Catholic Church in McSherrystown, in his homily, noted that Sonny expressed “friendliness, simplicity, and profound humility” in the way he carried on his many enterprises.“Simplicity was the common denominator of his every action, brevity, his by-word . . ..” Despite his very public life, Sonny was not one to seek attention. Father McGinley, years later, remembered that Sonny’s “most conspicuous quality was his desire to be inconspicuous.”  

It is through Father McGinley that we have a glimpse of the contemplative side of Sonny’s character. In his homily, he recalled that most of his conversations with Sonny were not about his many undertakings but about heaven and a concern for the souls in purgatory.

One might wonder how Delone Catholic became the site of a memorial to Sonny Sheppard when he never attended the school. The connection seems to be Father William Lyons, who became Principal of Delone Catholic a year before Sonny’s death. The story is told that two weeks before Sonny’s fatal plane crash, Sonny visited Delone Catholic to offer advice to Father Lyons about how to improve the grass on the run-down football field. Sonny recommended planting the field with Kentucky bluegrass and fescue, and then made arrangements for the planting to be done. Father Lyons was amazed when a crew showed up shortly after Sonny’s death to carry out his planting instructions. 

Sonny’s interest in helping others and his concern for youth impressed Father Lyons. Years later, when Father Lyons recognized the inadequacy of the existing gym, he approached Sonny’s father about the idea of a new gym as a memorial to Sonny. They decided to place the new gym on the football field that Sonny had improved.  

At the time of the dedication of the Sheppard Gymnasium, Father Lyons confessed he found it difficult to even imagine “how different a new facility like this will make things. . ..” The current principal, William Lippe, concurs with his assessment of the importance of the building. “It is likely Delone Catholic would not exist today without the Sheppard Gymnasium,” he states.

As Sonny Sheppard found so much enjoyment in helping others, it is certainly fitting that a memorial to him is also doing so much good. The hope that he should be emulated by the students at Delone Catholic is also fitting. Sonny was a doer, but, more to the point, Sonny was a “Doer of the Word” (James 1:22).