Leo Shepherd
The Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-day Saints ran a program called the Lamanite Placement Program
in the late 60's and early 70's. It allowed elementary and junior-high school
aged Native American children the opportunity to expand their experiences beyond
the Navajo Nation and the Indian Reservations.
We had seen other
families in the ward who had successfully hosted some of these children;
specifically Larry Bailey and his family. There was a family in the ward, the
Matheson's if I remember correctly, who had a boy in their home, but either
they had to move, or something wasn't working out, so the boy, Leo Shepherd
needed to be relocated. I had played with him in our Sunday School class and
liked him, so we decided that it would be ok to have him come to our house.
This would have been in the fall of 1970, for the 1970-1971 school year. I was
in the 5th grade at Cullen, in Mrs. Seibert's class, and even though he was
about a year older than me, it was felt that for his schooling he needed to be
in my class.
I know that one
issue was that he barged into relationships with some of my friends, which was
tough. Also, apparently I showed an interest in a girl or two and he would
taunt me: "Gordon has a girlfriend!" over and over, which is very
disconcerting for a 10 year old boy. It was at this point that I moved down the
hall to Dard's room, and Dard moved downstairs. That helped.
Leo came from a
large family that struggled to feed everyone, so he was always eating, and even
taking other's portions. If you remember, Mom would portion everything out
carefully, but that was a struggle for Leo, since in his family, if you didn't
take as much food as you could, you would go hungry. He also fought me for my
bike. Two main incidences: Leo and I were watching TV and he kept wanting to
change the channel on my. Dad was in his workroom and finally had enough and
really lit into Leo. This was one of the few times I really saw Dad so upset.
Another time, Leo and I had a spat at the end of the day walking home from
school on St. Patrick's Day. He said that I wasn't wearing green and tried to
pinch me, I tried to deflect, and he ended up slugging me, hard, on the side of
the head. He ran home, I cried home (heavy sobs), but my only reprisal was
knowing he would be in real trouble with Mom. Since he got home first, he
confessed to the whole thing and she just lightly punished him and I felt he
was fully pardoned.
I'm not sure how he
fared with the rest of the family; other than I think he realized that Joyce
meant business and she wouldn't give him the time of day.
Other than that, we
just worked along, going to school, family outings, and such. It was not really
a happy experience for anyone, Leo included. When the end of the school year
arrived, we drove out to the Upland Stake Center for his return home. As soon
as he saw his brothers on the bus, he disappeared onto the bus and into the
night, never looking back. Mom was relieved.
Again, it was hard,
but not bad. We survived, and learned that we certainly loved each other as a
family and didn't need to go beyond that much.
