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Ellen Hyry Sheppard

COLUMBIA, SC — Ellen Hyry Sheppard was born January 28, 1923 in Champion, Michigan. Ellen’s parents, Charles and Mary Beck Hyry, emigrated from Finland around 1900.

Ellen was the youngest child and fifth daughter of ten children. Related families included the Beck and Kangas families. Ellen served as co-valedictorian of the Champion High School graduating class of 1940.

She moved to Washington DC in 1942 to join the war effort as a secretary for the US State Department. Ellen made lifelong friends in Washington and there met and married Bruce Alton Sheppard, a war veteran from Alabama.

Ellen and Bruce moved to Grand Rapids, Michigan in the early 1950’s, where son Steven Neil and daughter Kathryn Ann were born. Bruce and Ellen moved to Jacksonville, FL in 1957, to Greer, SC in 1975 and later to Green Valley, AZ. Bruce was diagnosed with cancer in 1988 and after his death, Ellen lived with Kathy and her grandchildren in Los Angeles, CA.

Ellen’s friends and family were her greatest happiness throughout her life. Ellen was an avid reader and walker. She especially loved animals and was devoted to the family’s many cats and dogs.

Ellen is survived by her two children, three grandchildren – Elizabeth Ellen Sheppard, Christopher Austen Taylor, and Daron Lenore Taylor McKown (Rhoddy) – and one great-granddaughter, Cora Lily McKown.

Please sign the online guestbook at www.dunbarfunerals.com.