One of his three daughters stood at the memorial to Bob Shepherd last Saturday. As many did that afternoon, Lynda Sauder fought back the emotions of losing her father to cancer on Oct. 23. She remembered growing up in a loving household, one that shared a passion for running, camping and plenty of debate around the dinner table.
“There’s a book in my father’s story,” she said. “And we’ve already started writing it.”
Robert “Bob” Shepherd, she told us, was born in Britain just before the Second World War in 1936 and had vivid memories of the hardships that war inflicted on his native country. Post-war, his pursuit of a better life for himself and his family brought Bob to Canada, where his employer – Olivetti – dispatched him to numerous locations as a sales manager. As my colleague Shelagh Fitz pointed in a Cosmosstory the week of Bob’s death, his workplace in Canada was “a geographic hopscotch that saw the family live in four provinces in less than a decade,” until he found a property on Wagg Road in 1972.
“Shepherd’s Bush,” as the family knew it, stimulated Bob’s passion for flora and fauna in the world. And, as it turned out, such deep and tangible roots in the township, also stirred the man’s desire to serve others where he lived. In 2003, he won a seat at Uxbridge Township Council, and in 2006 the mayor’s chair for a term. And, as his son Paul Shepherd pointed out during the memorial last Saturday, Bob Shepherd proved to be a ’round-the-clock representative.
“He could be found at his township office anytime and all the time,” Paul said, “even working there most weekends.”
And that’s not the half of it. Bob Shepherd loved his role in public life. But he also respected what that responsibility meant even when not wearing the mayor’s chain of office. I recall countless times seeing him seated at the back of a hall taking in amateur theatre, or dropping into main-street businesses just to chat.
Blue Heron Bookstore owner Shelley Macbeth called it “walkabout” governance. At a townhall I once emceed, we entertained ideas from the community about development, watershed preservation, keeping youth from leaving their hometown, services for senior citizens, I suddenly spotted Bob taking notes at the back. He wasn’t expected to speak, make representation, or respond officially. He was there just because he wanted to.
“Dad demonstrated with his actions,” his son Paul said.
And that’s the Bob Shepherd I’ll remember too. Once during the time he served as mayor, Bob phoned to ask if I’d attend a meeting of community members. It wasn’t anything official. Nobody had to be designated chair or recording secretary.
Bob got things started as unofficial chair, but merely listened as business owners, youth, clergy, volunteers, farmers, artists, etc., offered thoughts on a variety of issues people were raising around town. At the end of the session, none of us was expected to sign anything or commit to monthly meetings. Bob had just engaged a cross-section of neighbours in the township.
Saturday’s memorial left plenty of room for fun memories of Bob too. Former resident Reid Wilson came to the microphone and recalled mutual experiences with Bob Shepherd. He remembered when the two men had decided to travel as roommates on a Rotary Club exchange trip to South Africa.
It meant coping with each other’s travel, dining and co-habitation habits (for example, both denying that he snored, but both coping once discovering they both did). More meaningful for Reid was the realization that each man could learn from the other’s wisdom. “I taught him what I knew about birds,” Wilson said, “and I learned what he knew about plants.”
A few years ago, I received “Uxbridge Citizen of the Year” designation. Of course, it was a distinct honour to be recognized by the community. I joined quite an array of fellow-honourees. But I remember, unlike other dignitaries who read speeches at the July 1 ceremony that year, Mayor Shepherd spoke without notes and without ceremony.
He applauded the idea of citizen to those on the podium and in the audience that Canada Day. He said being a citizen was really the act of listening, caring and giving freely of one’s personal time whether others were watching or not.
I truly believe that the biggest word in the English language is “citizen.” Those of us born in this country enjoy it as a birth right. Those who emigrate here have to land and establish themselves as landed immigrants, then study and pass tests to acquire it. Above and beyond the piece of paper and oath of allegiance, however, I think there’s a higher form of citizenship. It’s the lower-case “c” kind of citizenship. It’s the kind that Bob Shepherd exemplified every day in office or not.
I’ll always remember him as citizen Bob Shepherd.