Scout Leader - Lifeguard - Journalist - Veteran
1955 National Honor Society 2008 Memorial Service Biographical Sketch
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The Tom and John Shepherd Story Online
Honoring John Snyder Blaise Shepherd
- Scout Leader - Lifeguard - Journalist -
Television Producer & American Icon
(a/k/a Army PFC Dudley Eugene Blaise Jr.)
1937 - 2002
view death certificate
First Operated for Brain Tumors in 1966.
Disabled and Homeless for Over 30 Years As A Result of Brain Tumor Surgery Complications and Neglect, He Died of a Chronic Seizure Disorder, Complicated by Aspiration Pneumonia and Multiple Cerebellar Abscesses
(as a result of three brain surgeries)
at Age 64 at Cox Hospital - Springfield, Missouri - April 2, 2002
Private Dudley E. Blaise Jr.
a/k/a John Snyder Shepherd
chronically ill veteran, died homeless - seizure disorder
+
is John Blaise Shepherd's grandfather.
a/k/a Tommy Separdi, is John Snyder Blaise Shepherd's surviving brother, who did not learn of his brother's death until two years later, although his name, address and phone number were on file with Springfield Christian ministry officials.
Captain John Shepherd &
Miss Beverly Bass
1955 ROTC Military Ball
Joplin High School -
Joplin, Missouri
Shepherds & Bass
The John Snyder Shepherd Chapel
St. Philip's Episcopal Church
Enter Chapel
John Age 18: Dude Ranch Hand Water Safety Instructor
While John Was Athletic Department Lifeguard at College
He Was Voted "Sexiest Man On Campus" by College Women
John's stepfather biography
John's Mother biography
Medical History - Records
for Dudley E. Blaise Jr., Homeless Army Veteran
a/k/a John Snyder Shepherd, Scout Leader, Lifeguard, Newscaster
View Medical Records
Grandson of Missouri Bus Line Founder, Rotary Club Pioneer John Snyder view
Grandson of Tulsa banker, oil man, mine owner E.F. Blaise view
Son of Mexico City businessman-engineer D.E. Blaise Sr., who abandoned Dudley Jr.,
and ran off with Alice LeRoi Jordan, USC social worker alumna
by whom he fathered & reared another son, Stephen Blaise
Dudley Jr NEVER in his life received even a letter or birthday card from his father,
who earned his living as an engineer and as president of Drilmex, S.A., in Mexico City,
while volunteering as an American Legion Little League baseball coach
to his son by Alice Jordan and to other peoples' sons.
Note: Dudley Sr. NEVER served in ANY branch of the U.S. armed forces.
Nor did Stephen, who has a Master's degree in physical education,
and now resides in his own lovely home in Houston.
a/k/a Dudley Eugene Blaise y Snyder
Dudley E. Blaise Jr.
John Snyder Blaise Shepherd was born October 3, 1937 at the American Hospital in Mexico City. His name appears as Dudley Eugene Blaise y Snyder on his birth certificate. He was christened in the Presbyterian Church as Dudley E. Blaise Jr. He assumed the sirname of his stepfather Charles M. Shepherd in 1950 and was known as John Snyder Shepherd while serving as an altar boy at St. Philip's Episcopal Chruch in Jopliln, Missouri and at the time he graduated from Joplin Senior High School. He served in the Army as Dudley E. Blaise Jr. and graduated from the University of Oklahoma with a B.A. degree in business administration.
He was the son of Clara Olive Snyder Blaise Shepherd and of Dudley E. Blaise Sr., vice president of the Admiralty Zinc Company, Picher, Oklahoma, and president of El Cedro Silver Mining Company, Guanajuato, Gto., Mexico. For a brief tour of Guanajuato, John's first home, click here.
Note: Clara Olive was evacuateed from Guanajuato during the spring of 1938, in the midst of the Anti-American miner's strike and political revolution, which began when Mexican President Cardenas expropriated Standard Oil from its American stockholders. Dudley E. Blaise Sr. abandoned his wife, Clara Olive, and his two sons, Dudley Jr. (John) and Tom in 1939, taking with him an inheritance Clara Olive had received from her father and paternal grandmother, who had died in 1931.
To view the Blaise family (John's mother, father and paternal grandparents) in Mexico in 1938, click here.
He was a stepson of Charles M. Shepherd, vice president of Ohio River Power Company and director/treasurer of Empire District Electric Company (Missouri), whom his mother married in 1949. For a view of the Shepherd home, 816 Richmond Road, Joplin, click here.
He was a grandson of Mabel Mitchell Snyder and of John Abbott Snyder, Joplin, Missouri bus line founder/owner. For a view of the Snyder home, 412 North Moffet, click here. To view a picture of Mabel Mitchell Snyder, the grandmother that raised John during his early years, prior to his mother's remarriage to Mr. Shepherd, click here.
To view a childhood picture of John and his younger brother Tom, click here.
He as also a grandson of Greek Miller Blaise Canterbury, Los Angeles real estate developer, and of Eugene Frank Blaise, Tulsa banker, oil man, and mining engineer.
He was a great grandson of Thomas Darlington Mitchell of Wellsville, New York.
He was a great grandson of Olive Merriman Snyder of Muncie, Indiana and Piqua, Ohio; a great great grandson of Charles Merriman, Ashtabula, Ohio, of Clara Ormerod Swift and of James E. Swift, Caudersport, Pa.
He was also a great great grandson of Hungarian Statesman and University of Missouri Professor Ignace Hainer and a great great nephew of Bayard Taylor Hainer, Oklahoma Territory Associate Supreme Court Justice, and of Congressman Eugene Hainer.
He was a third cousin of former Congressman Barry M. Goldwater Jr.
He was the brother of Thomas Mitchell Blaise Shepherd
Education:
Columbia School, Joplin, Missouri
Joplin Senior High School Class of 1955, Joplin, Missouri.
Member: National Honor Society
Member: SPQR
Editor: JHS Spyglass
Captain: ROTC
Camp Counselor:
Missouri Boys Scout Camp Ni-Ka-Ga-Ha
Michigan Dude Ranch: Michigan Dude Ranch 1956 Water Safety Instructor 1956
Kansas State University, Pittsburg.
Major: psychology
Southwest Missouri State University, Springfield.
Majors: political science, Spanish literature
SMS Lifeguard
University of Oklahoma, Norman.
B.S. business administration.
short order cook, dorm counselor, accounting clerk
Asst. Scout Master: First Presbyterian Church, Joplin.
Altar Boy: St. Philip's Episcopal Church, Joplin.
Radio newscaster, Springfield.
Veteran: U.S. Army 1962-1964
Date of Death: April 2, 2002
Place of death: Cox Memorial Hospital, Springfield.
Cause of death: brain seizure, multiple brain leisians, and pneumonia as a result of being homeless and neglected by Veterans Administration, Springfield Rotary Club, Springfield Victory Mission and Council of Churches.
Was operated for brain tumor at St. Francis Hospital, Tulsa, and at The Mayo Clinic in 1966, and at Parkland Hospital, Dallas, in 1978.
During the surgical procedure at The Mayo Clinic, he suffered a stroke and resulting paralysis of facial muscles. He also lost all hearing in one ear and suffered from apparent depression and chronic seizures and continuous drainage of puss from a surgical drainage hole in the back of his head for approximately 30 years up until the time of his death.
He was a missing person during the greater part of the last 30 years of his life, and apparently despondent and homeless. The last time his surviving brother, Tom, saw him was May 1970, while he was still a resident of Norman, Oklahoma, where he had just received a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration from the University of Oklahoma. He soon after disappeared. Records now indicate he underwent additional brain surgery at Parkland Hospital in Dallas in about 1978.
Springfield Victory Mission officials, Cox Hospital officials and Lohmeyer Funeral Home officials made no effort to try to contact JDudley's brother, Tom Blaise Shepherd, prior to his last hospitalization or after his death, although his address and phone number had been made available to James M. Harriger, Victory Mission director in February 2002, less than two months prior to his death on April 2, 2002, at which time Victory Mission director James E. Harriger told Tom that his brother Dudley was doing fine, that he had an apartment of his own, and that he occasionally saw him at the library.
An attendant at Victory Mission has since claimed that Dudley did NOT have an apartment of his own in February 2002, but was still virtually homeless and ill and had actually slept on the floor at the Victory Mission the night before Tom spoke with Harriger via telephone and that he had been admitted to the emergency room at St. John's Hospital that morning, then discharged onto the streets of Springfield.
Hospital records, since received, indicate that Dudley E. Blaise Jr. was admitted to St. John's Hospital in Springfield in February, 2002, following a fall and back injury he suffered while residing at Victory Mission. He was admitted to Cox Hospital the following month, following a seizure, while temporarily residing at the Missouri Hotel, an s/r/o for mentally ill, indigent people. The manager of the hotel has been uncooperative in releasing any information regrding Dudley E. Blaise Jr.
It now appears that the reason Tom Blaise Shepherd was not contacted or notified of his brother's last hospitalizations (between February and April, 2002) was because Springfield mission officials, Missouri Hotel officials, and hospital officials feared being held liable for negligence and possible wrongful death.
Arrangements: Lohmeyer Funeral Home, Springfield.
Cremation & Burial: Veteran's Memorial Cemetery, Springfield.
Any persons who had any form of communication with Dudley E. Blaise Jr. during the last 30 years of his life and who would care to share their impressions, please contact his brother, Thomas M. Shepherd, Publisher, The Xandex Press, at:
Thomas M. Shepherd Online
Victory Mission
is under the auspices of Rev. James M. Harriger
The Kitchen, Inc.
is under the auspices of Sisters of Mercy and St. John's Hospital
Victory Mission and The Kitchen, Inc. receive millions of dollars in federal grants
to serve the homeless and impoverished ill residents of Springfield.
Churches are left billions of dollars annually in tax-sheltered trusts!
Tax write-offs for the rich, who profit from the poverty of others!
Where does the money go?
Much of it goes into the private bank accounts of the Christian Church administrators and physicians,
who resultantly live in comparatively lavish circumstances in comparison to their impoverished clients.
Dudley E. Blaise Jr. (a/k/a John Shepherd) was "serviced" by Victory and The Kitchen, Inc.
for over ten years. Yet, less than two months prior to his death he slept on the floor
at Victory Mission on a cold February night, since the mission only provided 30 beds for homeless men.
Most mission tenants are kicked out onto the streets at 6 a.m. every day.
They are treated as if they are miserable sinners, moral lepers.
. When Blaise reported to the St. John's Hospital emergency room the following day,
he was released onto the streets that same evening, homeless and still suffering..
He was admitted to Cox Hospital a month later from the Missouri Hotel, operated by The Kitchen
He died of penumonia, contracted at Cox Hospital, and of a seixaure on April 2, 2002
The Kitchen, Inc., which operates the Missouri Hotel
has refused releasing records or information on Dudley E. Blaise to his surviving brother, Tom Blaise Shepherd. Missouri Attorney General Nixon has ignored a request for an investigation.
Who is Rev. James M. Harriger What is The Kitchen, Inc.