Fanny Shepherd was born in Kent, England in 1866, the youngest daughter of baker and operator of a public house, Edward Hopper. Edward Hopper was born in Eastry, England in 1833.

William Shepherd was born on the Island of Sheppy, England in 1862. William originally worked in a butcher’s shop in Canterbury. He and Fanny married in 1887 and had three sons, Will, George, and Charles in Canterbury before moving to Deal in 1894. They had a daughter, Kitty, and sons Harry and Geoffrey in Deal, and a last son Tommie in Ramsgate. After attempting to farm and returning to the butcher business, the family decided to immigrate to Canada. They ended up acquiring 640 acres of land to farm outside of Stalwart, Saskatchewan.

Fanny, an active community leader, gave the leading address for the women’s section of the Moose Jaw Grain Growers’ Convention. She also wrote a regular column titled Mother’s Hens that was published in The Grain Growers’ Guide.

In February 1916, Will Shepherd married Fanny Howland, who hailed from Kent. They had three children, Edgar, Margaret, and Sylvia. Edgar served in the Royal Canadian Air Force in WWII, and married Betty Ritchie who passed away in 1983. They had daughters Patricia and Sylvia. Edgar died in 1999. Margaret was born in 1922, and married Gordon McKay. They had two sons, Bill and Paul. Gordon McKay passed away in 1984, and Margaret in 2004 in Moose Jaw where she had lived for most of her life. Sylvia was born in 1928 and married George Gow in 1957. George died in 1980. They had a daughter, Nancy, in 1958, and a son, Richard, in 1962. Sylvia resides in Moose Jaw.

Charles and George Shepherd, sons of William and Fanny, left the family farm in Stalwart to go West in search of land for new homesteads. They started in Maple Creek, but eventually settled South of Cypress Hills and also West Plains. Every family member would eventually move West to join except for the aforementioned William Junior and his wife Fanny.

Charles married Helen Banks and had sons, Jack, in 1922 and Charlie, in 1926. Charles died in July 1926, and his youngest brother Tommie would marry his widow Helen in February 1929. They raised children Joan, Lloyd, and Ruth.

Jack enlisted in the Canadian Army in 1942 and fought in Europe. He contracted tuberculosis in Italy and recuperated for 18 months. He married Mary Mitchell in 1949, and they assumed control of the family ranch in 1950. They had daughters Barbara, Sheila, CIndy, and Susan.

Lloyd went to school for engineering and graduated in 1956. He married Florence Lavers in 1957 and returned to school at the University of Saskatchewan, earning a Phd. in physics in 1963.

George married Irene Thompson in 1927 and had children Gordon and Eleanor. Gordon attended Luther College High School in Regina and then went to Harvard Medical School, and then to Yale. He researched nerve cells and wrote books about his research. He married Grethe Gadegaard and had children Gordon, Kristen, and Lisbeth.