SHEPHERD, HARRY SHERMAN (1896-1976)

SHEPHERD, HARRY SHERMAN, Anglican curate and rector, Derby and Blackville, 1925-29; b. Grand Manan Island, N.B., 26 Oct 1896, s/o Alvin Shepherd and Letitia Gilligan; m. Marguerite Susanna Latham, a native of Ottawa, Ont.; d. Grand Manan, 17 Oct 1976.

After serving in the armed forces in World War I, H. Sherman Shepherd returned to the academic studies he had begun previously at King's College, Windsor. He was granted a BA degree in 1924. When he also completed the theological training course at King's in 1925, he was made a deacon of the Anglican church and appointed curate of Derby and Blackville. He was ordained a priest in 1926.

Shepherd stated in one of his submissions to the diocesan office in Fredericton that he found the filing of reports to be a distasteful duty. This may have been why, in 1929, he exchanged his pastoral ministry for the principalship of a school for Inuit boys at Shingle Point in the Northwest Territories. In 1936, the school, which he continued to head, was moved to Aklavik, as All Saints' School. In this period, he was a canon of the cathedral at Aklavik. Between 1947 and 1954, he served in the diocese of Moosonee, Ont., again being in charge of a school on the Quebec side of the diocese. In 1959, his educational accomplishments in the North were rewarded with an honorary DD degree from the University of King's College.

Shepherd was a priest of the diocese of Toronto from 1954 to 1965, being at Kinmount, Ont., in 1956, and later at Pickering. In 1965-66 he served as an assistant priest in Moncton, and he retired there at the end of the year. He later lived in Nashwaaksis. At the time of his death, he was a resident of the Ocean View nursing home on Grand Manan Island. He was survived by a daughter and two sons, his wife, "Rita" Latham, having predeceased him in 1974.