in the Twentieth Century:
The Life of Clara Olive Snyder
as told by her son
Thomas Mitchell Blaise Shepherd
a/k/a Tom Miguel
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Honeymoon - The West Indies - January 1935
Clara Olive, 29, is a graduate of National Park Seminary in Forest Glen, Maryland. She afterwrds attended the University of Kansas, where she was affiliated with Pi Beta Phi social sorority. She is the daughter of Mabel Darlington Mitchell Snyder and of the late John Abbott Benham Snyder, Missouri-Arkansas bus line owner and plow manufacturer.
Dudley, 26, who attended Colorado School of Mines. is the son of Greek Miller Blaise Canterbury of Chicago and Los Angeles, and of Eugene Frank Blaise, Tulsa banker (Farmer's National Bank of Tulsa), oil baron and mine operator. He is the great nephew of Bayard Taylor Hainer, Supreme Court Justice of Oklahoma Territory and chief counsel for the Federal Trade Commission. His great grandfather, Ignace Hainer-Madarasz, was a lawyer and a member of the staff of Hungarian Premier Batthyanni during the 1848 Hungarian War for Independence.
Dudley is connected as a superintendent wtih the Admiralty Zinc Mining Company at Joplin, of which his father is president. In 1936 Admiralty Zinc Company is sold to Eagle Picher Mining Company and the Blaises establish El Cedro Silver Mining Company at Guanajuato, Gto., Mexico and establish a permanent residence there in 1937. Guanajuato Home.
In October 1937, a son Dudley Jr. (John) is born to them at American Hospital in Mexico City. In March 1938 Mexican President Lazaro Cardenas expropriates 17 foreign-owned petroleum companies, based in Mexico. Cardenas also authorizes a strike against foreign-operated mining companies, including El Cedro.
In the midst of the strike, Dudley's wife Clara Olive is evacuated from Guanajuato for her safety, return to her mother's home in Missouri with their infant son Dudley Jr. Clara Olive is also pregnant with a second son, who is born at Freeman Hosptial in Joplin in the month of November 1938 and named Thomas Mitchell Blaise..
Soon after, Dudley liquidates El Cedro and disappears from Guanajuato, residing for a while at the Reforma Hotel in Mexico City.
Clara Olive never sees her husband again. Clara Olive, incidentally had transferred a portfolio of stocks inherited from her grandmother and her father into Dudley's name for management purposes prior to moving to Mexico.
Meanwhile, a Miss Alice LeRoi Jordan Oswald, a divorcee, has given birth to a son at a hospital in Chula Vista, California, a son she names Stephen and who she claims was fathered by Dudley. Alice and her son Stephen are discovered to be living in an apartment house owned by Dudley's mother on Vista Avenue in Hollywood, California. Dudley himself is residing at another Hollywood residence, also owned by his mother.
When Dudley is ordered to appear in a Los Angeles Superior Court and answer charges of failing to care for and support his legally married wife, Clara Olive, and their two sons Dudley Jr. and Tom, he flees back to Mexico, where, via his father, he obtains employment as a mine superintendent with American Mining & Smelting Company in San Luis Potosi.
Interestingly, Miss Jordan, accompanied by her son, Stephen, follows him. However, Dudley ultimately abandons Miss Jordan and the son she claims he fathered, then applies to the U.S. government for a mining engineering contract in South Africa, listing Clara Olive Blaise as his wife. The application, signed and dated January 1949, is postmarked Rio Grande City, Texas, where Dudley has meanwhile found employment as a general manager for Telepsom Construction Company, which company is under contract for construction of the Falcon Dam.
A copy of the U.S. government application is provided Dudley's wife Clara Olive at her mother's home in Joplin, Missouri by two agents of the FBI, who were brought into the case when Clara Olive's attorneys John W. Scott and Clay Cowgill Blair Jr. and Joplin Mayor John Temples and Missouri Congressman Dewey Short sought to persuade Dudley to begin supporting his wife Clara Olive and the two sons he sired by her.
Meanwhile, Dudley finds lucrative employment in Bolivia as a mining engineer by the Patino Tin Mining Company, at which time Alice rejoins him. When Patino is expropriated by the Bolivian government in 1952, Dudley and Alice return to Mexico, wherre Dudley finds lucrative employment as an engineer and eventually heads as president Drilmex, S.A. in Mexico City.
In 1949, Clara Olive was granted a divorce on grounds of desertion and married Charles M. Shepherd, a native of England, a director and treasurer of the Empire District Electric Comany at Joplin. Mr. Shepherd commited suicide in 1955 while on a business trip to Washington, D.C. and New York City, following his resignation from Empire. His body was recovered from the East River in New York City on May 31, 1955
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Xochimilco - Mexico City
1938
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National Park Seminary
Forest Glen, Maryland
1926
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Childhood Portrait:
John and Tom Blaise
Joplin, Missouri
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Dudley and Clara Olive's son:
Thomas Mitchell Blaise Shepherd
a/k/a Tom Blaise de Shepherd (Age 33)
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Banker-Oil Man
Miner
portrait & biography
Dudley and Clara Olive's son:
Pfc. Dudley E. (John) Blaise Jr.
a/k/a John Snyder Blaise Shepherd
1937 - 2002
died of multiple brain tumor complications
was missing and homeless for over 30 years
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