Celinda Merriman became the wife of William
Austin Oves of Muncie, Indiana. . . . more
He and his wife sired two sons, John Edgar
Johnson and Ray Prescott Johnson, both of whom were founders and directors of
the Borg-Warner Corporation, and a daughter, Florence Grace Johnson (Jr.), who
married Charles Strout Davis (Sr.), Harvard (Class of 1899), who served as
chairman and president of Borg-Warner up until his death in 1954. . . more
Ray
Prescott Johnson Sr.
Founder
& Vice President – Borg-Warner Corporation
Ray Prescott Johnson Sr. was born in
Buffington, Indiana. After attending public and private schools, he graduated
from University of Chicago in 1903. Prior to his graduation he was associated
(since 1901) with his father, Abbott L. Johnson, in the founding of the Warner
Gear Company of Muncie, eventually replacing his father as president in 1919.
Mr. Johnson is also a director of the Delaware County National Bank of Muncie,
president of the Warner Electric Company, vice president of Glasscock Brothers
Manufacturing Company, vice president of Borg-Warner and a member of the
directorate of the Live Poultry Transit Company of Chicago.
Following the merging of Warner Gear Company
and Borg, Beck and Clutch Company to form the Borg-Warner Corporation, he
served as vice president of Borg-Warner up until his death in 1933. He was a
thirty-second degree Mason and a member of several Shrine organizations in
Muncie and Indianapolis. He was also a member of the Rotary Club and Muncie Chamber of Commerce.
On June 6, 1906,
at Terre Haute, Indiana, Mr. Johnson married Miss Anna Davis, daughter of
Daniel N. and Margaret Hyde Davis, who was also connected with the Warner Gear
Company. Prior to becoming his bride, Miss Anna Davis was Mr. Johnson’s sister
in law, as Miss Davis’ brother, Charles Strout Davis, had married Ray’s sister,
Florence Grace.
Two children were born to Ray Prescott and
Anna (Davis) Johnson: Ray Prescott Johnson Jr. and Margaret Johnson. Ray, an
alumnus of Wabash College and Harvard University, also became associated with
Warner Gear Company as a director. He married the former Elizabeth Healey, by
whom he sired several children.
Margaret (Peggy) Johnson graduated from Mount
Vernon Seminary, Washington, D. C. in 1929. She afterwards graduated from Grand
Central Art School in New York and worked as a designer. She later opened her
own dress shop in Muncie, prior to her marriage to Barry Morris Goldwater, a
native of Phoenix, Arizona, in September 1934 at Grace Episcopal Church in
Muncie. . . . more
A product of Indiana, Charles Strout Davis
founded one of the nation’s largest automotive parts manufacturers and
conceived the trophy presented to winners of the Indianapolis 500.
Born in Terre Haute on Feb. 2, 1877, Charles was
the adopted son of Daniel Nicholds Davis and Margaret Deith (Hyde) Davis. A
native of Wales, 17-year-old Daniel N. Davis was one of 11 children to locate
in Terre Haute with their parents, William Gabriel and Jane (Thomas) Davis, in
1868. Charles had two siblings, Anna and Paul. After attending Terre Haute High
School and graduating from Greencastle Preparatory School, he enrolled at
DePauw University. Two years later he transferred to Harvard University,
earning a bachelor of arts degree in 1899. Securing a job with the New York
Times, he became its first automobile editor and the yachting editor. After
less than two years, he left the newspaper to return to Terre Haute to help his
father manage Don Davis Coal Co.
On Nov. 17, 1904, Charles wed Florence
Grace Johnson, daughter of Muncie industrial leader Abbott L. Johnson, who
was president of the Warner Gear Co. She was a first cousin of John
Abbott Snyder, who later founded a Missouri bus line.
In 1907 Charles and his family relocated to Muncie
where he became secretary-treasurer of Glascock Bros. Manufacturing Co. A few
years later, he was elected president. In 1919 Davis also associated with
Warner Gear Co., an auto manufacturer headed by his father-in-law Abbott L.
Johnson and his brother-in-law Ray Prescott Johnson, who married
Anna Davis, Charles’ step sister. In 1928, Johnson and Davis spearheaded the
consolidation of Warner Gear and 14 other auto accessory firms into the
Borg-Warner Corporation. Headquarters were established in Chicago,
prompting the Davis family─–which included daughter Florence Isabel and
sons Johnson and Charles Jr. –to acquire a residence at 1500 Lake Shore
Drive. Though still maintaining a home in Muncie, the Davis family owned
waterside retreats at Palm Beach, Fla. and Northport Point, Mich.
Charles was a nationally-recognized yachtsman.
Niece Peggy
Ann Johnson, daughter of Anna (Davis) and Ray Prescott Johnson, married
Arizona politician-statesman Barry M. Goldwater.
In 1935 Davis commissioned Robert J. Hill to
design a special $10,000 sterling silver trophy to present to winners at the
Indianapolis Motor Speedway. First conferred upon 1935 Indianapolis 500 winner
Louis Meyer, the Borg-Warner trophy now is valued at more than one million
dollars. A 25-karat gold embossed portrait of former Speedway owner Anton
Hulman Jr. was added to the trophy in 1988.
Before Davis moved
to Muncie, he was active in local civic affairs. Co-founder of the Terre Haute
Young business Men’s club, he served as its first secretary. He later became a
director of City National Bank & Trust of Chicago, North American
Car Co., Morse Chain Co. an the Chicago YMCA. At the time
Davis retired in 1950, Borg-Warner Corporation had 27 subsidiaries and 30
plants in eight states.
Charles died at age 77 on July 11, 1954,
while vacationing in Paris, France. His
wife Grace died at
the age of 91 on February 23, 1974 at the family home on South Lake Trail in
Palm Beach.
Charles’ son Charles
Strout Davis Jr., a graduate of the Choate School and Princeton University
and who served as a vice president of Borg-Warner for many years, is the author
of several plays and of the novel Allegiances, published
in 2001 by the Merriman Press of Grosse Pointe.
Charles Strout Davis Jr.
industrialist – playwright - novelist
Born in Muncie, Indiana, Charles Strout Davis Jr. is the
son of Florence Grace Johnson Davis and of Charles Strout Davis Sr., founder and
president of the Borg-Warner Corporation. He is a graduate of the Choate School
and Princeton University with a degree in engineering. Among numerous works, he
has authored two plays, Practice to Deceive, starring Dorothy
Malone (1981), and The Beekeeper, starring Rebecca Trotsky
(1984).
His first novel,
Allegiances, published in 2001 by the Merriman Press, is an epic
adventure set in 1861. Over ten years in the making, the novel was born out of
his intense interest in determining the root causes of international wars and
the track of the famous yacht, America, during the Civil War.
In 1945, he
received the prestigious Naval Ordnance Development Award for his work on the
first lock-on-target radar-controlled naval gun director, Mark 61, which is
credited for stopping the Japanese kamikaze attacks on our navy aircraft
carriers.
For twenty-five
years, a director and executive of Borg-Warner Corporation, he took early
retirement to devote full time to writing. An avid sailor, he has cruised the
Great Lakes and the Caribbean extensively.
Mr. Davis and
his wife had homes in Muncie, Indiana, Grosse Pointe, Michigan and Fort
Lauderdale, Florida. He was survived by two children, to include Charles Strout
Davis II of Grosse Pointe Farms, and three grandchildren. A brother Johnson
Davis and a sister Mrs. James (Isabel) Wise preceded him in death.
Allegiances can
be purchased at Amazon.com.
John Abbott Benham Snyder
Joplin,
Missouri
Born in 1878 at Ashtabula, Ohio and reared in Muncie,
Indiana and Piqua, Ohio, John Abbott Benham Snyder was the son of Olive
Merriman Snyder and W. C. Benham. He was a grandson of Charles and Martha
(Gillette) Merriman, Ashtabula, natives of New Haven, Connecticut. He was a
nephew of Florence Grace Merriman Johnson and of Abbott Livingston Johnson,
Muncie industrialist, who was a co-founder of the Ohio and Indiana Bentwood
factories and of the Warner Gear Company, of which he served as president,
prior to its merger with Borg, Beck & Clutch, to become known as the
Borg-Warner Corporation.
Mr. Snyder was
the stepson of Andrew Griffin Snyder, Ohio banker, Bentwood factory owner and
plow manufacturer.
In 1905 John
Abbott Snyder and Mabel Darlington Mitchell were joined in holy
matrimony at the Piqua, Ohio home of her parents. She was the daughter of
Thomas Darlington Mitchell, a native of Cornwall, Great Britain and Wellsville,
N. Y. She was also the daughter of Clara (Ormerod) Swift Mitchell, a native of
Caudersport, Penn. The Snyders operated the Piqua Bentwood factory, the
Blaine-Harrow Plow Factory and a bank at Piqua. The Swift-Mitchell family
operated the Swift Planing Mill at Piqua.
They sired one
daughter, Clara Olive Snyder, born in Piqua, Ohio in 1906.
Mr. Snyder
became general manager of the Galena Harrow Factory at Galena, Kansas in 1909.
He founded the J.A. Snyder Transportation Company (also known as the Snyder Bus
Line) at Joplin, Missouri in 1914. The bus line served the communities of
Southwest Missouri, Northwest Arkansas and a part of Kansas. He was one of the
first members of the Joplin Chamber of Commerce and a member of the board of
directors of the First State Bank of Joplin. He was a member of the First
Presbyterian Church.
Mr. Snyder died
in March 1931 at the age of 55. H was survived by his mother, Olive Merriman Snyder,
Muncie, Indiana, a brother, W.C. Benham, Muncie, and his wife, Mabel Mitchell
Snyder and his daughter Clara Olive Snyder of the home, 412 North Moffet Ave.,
Joplin. His wife, Mabel, died in September 1962. Both of them are buried in
Mount Hope Cemetery at Webb City, Missouri
. . more
1937 - 2002
Born in Mexico
City on October 3, 1937, John Snyder Blaise Shepherd, was the son of Dudley
Eugene Blaise Sr. and Clara Olive Snyder Blaise. He was the grandson of
Oklahoma oilman Eugene F. Blaise and of Missouri bus line founder John A.
Snyder (native of Ashtabula, Ohio, Muncie, Indiana and Piqua, Ohio. He was the
stepson of Empire District Electric Co. director/treasurer Charles Maynard
Shepherd, native of England and New York City.
He was a great great grandson of Charles Merriman, Ashtabula, Ohio
Mr. Shepherd was
graduated from Columbia Elementary School and Joplin High School in Missouri,
where he was selected to be a member of the National Honor Society, to be
editor of The Spyglass, to be a member of the debate team and to be a captain
in the Reserve Officers Training Corps. A member of the Boy Scouts of America,
he served as a cub scout den chief and as an assistant scoutmaster from the age
of 13. He ultimately achieved the rank
of star scout. He also served as an altar boy and an officer of the Young
Peoples Service League at St. Philip’s Episcopal Church.
During his high
school and college years John was employed as a news photographer, as a
newspaper editor, as a radio newscaster and as a television production
assistant. He worked as a lifeguard for the Southwest Missouri State University
athletic department and as a dormitory counselor at the University of Oklahoma.
Considered an outstanding archer, John placed second in a Southwest Missouri
men’s archery tournament at the age of 17.
He was employed,
during the summertime, as a counselor at a dude ranch in Michigan and at a Boy
Scout camp in Missouri, where he worked as an archery instructor, as a canoeing
instructor and a a water safety instructor.
Following
graduation from Joplin High School, he majored in psychology, Spanish and
business administration at Kansas State University, Southwest Missouri State
University and University of Oklahoma, from where he was awarded a Bachelor of
Science degree.
While attending
SMSU and employed by KTTS-TV in Springfield, he independently created and
packaged a television show called The
Home Show, to be hosted by Robert Heater and Beth Tudor. Unable to find
a sponsor for the show, he enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1962, where he served
as a Spanish interpreter to the Adjutant General at Fort Bliss.
Following his
discharge from the Army, he was operated (in1966) for a benign although massive
brain tumor (that affected his hearing and his balance nerve) at St. Francis
Hospital in Tulsa and at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester in 1966, and at Parkland
Hospital in Dallas in 1978. During his surgery at the Mayo Clinic he suffered a
stroke, which left him with paralysis of facial muscles, periodic seizures and
other complications. He expired April 2, 2002 at a Cox Hospital in Springfield,
Missouri. . . . more
American Educator - Journalist
Born in 1938, Thomas Mitchell Blaise Shepherd is the son of
Clara Olive Snyder Shepherd and Dudley Eugene Blaise Canterbury. He is the
stepson of Charles Maynard Shepherd. He is the maternal grandson of Mabel
Mitchell Snyder and John Abbott Benham Snyder, Missouri bus line owners and
plow manufacturers. He is a paternal grandson of Eugene Frank Blaise, Tulsa banker and oil baron.
Tom was a victim
of a series of abductions, assaults and battery by high school classmates and
neighbor boys, Don Smith, Buck Jeans, Bob Thornhill and Jim Dailey, the last of
which occurred in the doorway of his home at 816 Richmond Road in February 1954
as he opened the door to invite them in. During his military service with the
United States Coast Guard during his teenage years, he was also became a victim
of a series of assaults and batteries by civilians and his own shipmates,
resulting his being hospitalized several times for surgical repair of a head
injury and for neurological observation. He was ultimately discharged for a
resultant condition.
He attended the
School of Philosophy and Letters of the Universidad Nacional Autónomo de
México, University of Missouri, American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York
City and the School of Arts and Sciences and the College of Arts and Science
and the Graduate College of University of Oklahoma. He also studied
architecture and construction technology at Crowder Community College.
He was briefly
associated with television producer Ruth Gould Foreman, owner of
Studio M Playhouse and Actors Studio in Coral Gables, Florida.
Tom was director of media research for
public television. He also served as a planning consultant to the Ozark Gateway
Regional Planning Commission and Law Enforcement Assistance Council in
Missouri. He founded Thomas of LaJolla Furniture at LaJolla, California in
1969. He also founded Blaise Publishing Enterprises at San Diego. His first
publication was The Investor’s Handbook on Mexico, published
in 1970.
While a student at University of
Oklahoma, he married the former Sue Ann Johnson-Moritz, who was later appointed
head librarian of the University of California at San Diego Medical Library.
Tom, whose pen name is Tom Blaise Shepherd, is also the author of An
Existential Approach to Sound Mental Health, The Schizophregenic
Society, The Artificial Man, The Crime of Psychiatry, The Conscience of an
Existentialist, The Investor’s Handbook on Mexico and other
publications. He is the founder-chancellor of the Shepherd
World Educational Foundation and the Shepherd-Montessori Institute.
1906 – 1976
Born February 16, 1906 at Piqua, Ohio, Clara Olive was the
daughter of John Abbott Snyder and Mabel Mitchell Snyder.
Her father founded and operated the J. A. Snyde
Transportation Co. (to include the Snyder Bus Line, theSnyder Rent-A-Car Co.
and the Snyder–Studebaker Motor Car Co.) which served the communites of
Southwest Missouri, northeast Kansas and Northwest Arkansas.
Clara Olive was the granddaughter of Andrew Griffin Snyder
and Olive Merriman Snyder (Piqua, Ohio and Muncie, Indiana) and of Thomas Darlington
Mitchell and Clara Swift Mitchell (Wellsville, N.Y. and Caudersport, Penn.).
Clara Olive was graduated from National Park Seminary,
Forest Glen, Maryland in 1926 and afterwards attended the University of Kansas,
where she was affiliated with Pi Beta Phi social sorority. From 1928 to 1929
she was married to Charles T. McCulloch, a native of Joplin, who was years
later appointed a campaign aide to Vice President Richard M. Nixon and still
later as a staff aide to California Gov. Ronald Reagan.
In 1934 Clara Olive married Dudley Eugene Blaise, a mining
engineer connected with the Admiralty Zinc Company at Joplin, Missouri, of
which his father was president. The Blaises later founded El Cedro Silver
Mining Company at Guanajuato, Mexico, which Dudley headed as
president until the company was liquidated following the nationalization of the
oil and mining industries of Mexico.
After Clara Olive transferred stocks she had inherited at the
death of her father and grandmother into her husband’s name, he deserted her
and their two infant sons in early 1939. Clara Olive was awarded a divorce on
grounds of desertion in 1949. Dudley Blaise was at the time reported to be
residing in La Paz, Bolivia, where (it was reported to her by the State
Department) he was employed as a mining engineer by the Patino Tin Company. He
was also reported to be living with and supporting another woman, a former resident of Hollywood and Glendale,
California, by whom he had sired a third child following his desertion of Clara
Olive and their two sons. Mr. Blaise never made restitution to Clara Olive.
Although she was eventually awarded alimony and child support by a La Paz,
Bolivia court of law, Mr. Blaise eventually discontinued paying the child
support after leaving Bolivia in 1952 and returning to Mexico City to live,
where he headed Drilmex, S. A. as president at the time of his retirement.
On December 3, 1949 Clara Olive married Charles Maynard Shepherd, a native of England and long-time
resident of New York City. Mr. Shepherd, a former accountant for Cities Service
Company in New York and vice president of a Cities Service subsidiary known as
the Ohio River Power Company was at the time director and treasurer of the
Empire District Electric Company (also a former Cities Service subsidiary),
headquartered in Joplin. Mr. Shepherd resigned from Empire in March 1954, as a
result of severe duress, a month
following a series of assaults, battery and the attempted murder of his
stepson, Tom, by teenage neighbors, to include Don Smith, Buck Jeans and Bob
Thornhill. READ STORY
Charles M. Shepherd died as a result of an apparent suicide
following a business trip to Washington, D. C. and New York City in May 1955.
His body was recovered from New York City’s East River on May 31, 1955. The
Shepherd family home was at 816 Richmond Road in Joplin, Missouri.
Following Mr. Shepherd’s death, Clara Olive’s cousin Grace
Johnson Davis, whose father, brothers and husband founded Borg-Warner
Corporation, established a trust fund for her, as she had become severely crippled
as a result of arthritis and as a result of negligent surgery she underwent at
St. John’s Hospital in Joplin to replace an arthritic hip in 1962, which
surgery left her without any hip and with the operated leg 4 inches shorter
than it had been prior to surgery. The
trust paid her an $80 quarterly dividend. A $25,000 malpractice lawsuit filed
against the negligent surgical team by Attorney Edward Farmer was settled out
of court by Attorneys Roberts & Fleischaker for a mere $400.00. Unable to
make ends meet, she was forced to sell the home her father had purchased in
1920 in order to pay creditors, including her own attorney, who attached a lien
against her home, leaving her virtually destitute.
During World War II, Clara Olive was employed at Camp
Crowder, a U.S. Army base in Neosho, Missouri. Following the war she was
employed as an office assistant to Dr. Sam Grantham, Joplin physician. She also
worked for Kay Chandler (Acme Atomic Minstrels) as a producer and director of
fund-raising musical revues for civic organizations, including women’s club,
The Jaycees, Lions Clubs and the American Legion, throughout the United States
during the 1940s.
She was residential chairman of Joplin’s first Cancer
Crusade and she served as a member of the board of directors for the Jasper
County Missouri Heart Association, of the Joplin Woman’s Club, of the Joplin
Little Theater and of the Tri-State Writer’s Guild. She was also a member of
the Tri-State Weavers Guild.
She died at a Tulsa hospital as a result of secondary
surgical procedures while undergoing orthopedic surgery to replace an arthritic
knee joint. . . more
She was survived by two sons, Thomas Mitchell Blaise Shepherd, with whom she
made her home, and John Snyder Blaise Shepherd.
Thomas has since founded the free online
Shepherd-Montessori Institute.
The Shepherd Montessori Institute
VIEW
PHOTOS OF CLARA OLIVE SHEPHERD & FAMILY HERE
