Yep, I am definitely biased. I always saw my Uncle Sam as big and wonderful – a most fun and perfect person. I was in first grade and my parents were out of town when I came down with a horribly painful stomach ache. I think our sitter thought I was exaggerating in order to stay home from school, but she did take me seriously enough (when it persisted) to take me to my uncle’s home for help. And after a brief examination, Uncle Sam rushed me to Bay View Hospital for an emergency appendectomy. I am thankful I am still around to enjoy my life – truly thanks to my uncle.
Although I know now he wasn’t perfect (he was irresponsible and had an affair and lied about it – damning evidence in 1954), he helped save many lives during his too-brief medical career.
A front-page article in the Cleveland Plain Dealer (9/22/1953), for example, described how Dr. Sam Sheppard revived a 13-year-old boy whose heart had stopped. Admitted at 7:30 p.m. to Bay View’s emergency room with severe injuries after being hit by a car, the boy was attended by Dr. Sam Sheppard and other staff physicians until after midnight while his condition remained critical.
Bottom Line: My uncle, Dr. Sam Sheppard, was passionate about medicine — just like his father and his two brothers. As an Osteopathic physician and neurosurgeon, Dr. Sam was totally and unalterably in the business of saving lives.
Tonight is the eve of July 4th. Marilyn Reese Sheppard was murdered on this eve, back in 1954. She had one boy child and was pregnant with another boy child. She never had the second boy because she was brutally murdered sometime in the quiet hours of the night.
I had one boy child and was carrying a second boy child. On this night, before the birth of my second boy, I sat up, sleepless, thinking of my Aunt Marilyn. What a horror, to lose your life and your child. I was afraid someone would murder me in my sleep just like they did her. The quiet of the night haunted me, as it has every July 4th eve, as if to say “it was just like this night, a hot summer night, quiet throughout the house, and the intruders came into her house and raped and killed her”. I sit up in bed with the lights on.
Sam and Marilyn were an aunt and uncle I never got to meet. And all the Sheppard cousins were people I never got to play with, or picnic with, or visit with on Christmas. Eventually, years later, we met at the trial in Cleveland. They were wonderful people and we shared a bond in the support for the innocence of Dr. Samuel Holmes Sheppard.
I know facts of the case and hold some family secrets from Marilyn’s side of the family, my family, and I know my uncle Sam didn’t murder my aunt Marilyn. These are words that I support with all my being.
My side of the family had to see the slain body of their loved one plastered all over the media. Her rape was my rape. Nightmares of a man hiding under my bed at night, coming out to kill me, were commonplace in my youth. Just as the Sheppard cousins had their crosses to bear, we had ours. I have felt their pain and suffering. How awful to have experienced that finger pointing at you and your loved ones. Society can be so cruel.
And every July 4th, my father, also a physician, who knew Sam and shared many memories with Sam and Marilyn, would be quiet. And he would talk to me about Marilyn, laugh about a funny event or saying that he shared with her, like when they taught each other how to slow dance, and he would cry, and cry, and cry.
It was very difficult growing up in a family with post traumatic stress. But, I feel the most sorrow for dear Marilyn, who missed out on so very much. This, on this July 4th eve, is for her.
Melissa, How I wish our lives could have been different! I’m so sorry to hear that Aunt Marilyn’s murder caused you to fear for your life when carrying your second child. This is exactly why I talk about the “living victims” left to survive as best they can when a family member is murdered. Post traumatic stress, indeed.