Warren Thompson Shepperd Papers, 1899-1969

The material in this Manuscript Group was originally stored in several letter transfer boxes, bundled file folders, and envelopes of various sizes. An attempt was made to bring like material together while, at the same time, maintaining the original order of each group.

In this regard, the personal correspondence presented the greatest problem. A small collection of Christmas cards with personal notes was retained and placed in a file folder. A second folder contains letters to Mildred Shepperd from various friends. There is no arrangement within these folders. The remaining folders, arranged alphabetically, contain Warren Shepperd's correspondence. Several different alphabetical files were melded into one sequence, but in no case were the contents of the folders combined. Therefore, there are folders for letters of the alphabet followed by folders for individuals, usually family members, or on subjects, i.e., Insurance, Legal (this contains correspondence relating to the estates of family members), and Sunswheat Deal (Sunswheat was a new breakfast cereal developed at the University of Washington). The taxes are arranged chronologically, with all taxed, property, state and federal income tax returns, for a given year in the same folder.

While secretary and Grand Chaplain of I.O.O.F. Lodge 34, Shepperd kept two alphabetical files. The second of these, all from late 1938, contained so very few items and were merged with the first which also contained 1938 correspondence. The correspondence to and from Shepperd as secretary of the Coeur d'Alene Kiwanis Club is also alphabetical.

The Baker-Fentress material was in one transfer box. With the exception of the first three sections (A-C) which were separated by subject, the letters appeared to be in no order. No attempt was made to reorganize this material.

The items in the Kootenai County Planning Commission are arranged alphabetically by project; Shepperd's original folder headings were retained.

Many Christmas and birthday cards in the collection contained no message and were removed. Several duplicate annual reports of the mill company were also withdrawn from the collection as was an eleven volume mimeographed set of jokes and speech ideas. A small sample of J.M. Carey's daily scale reports were retained, but since summary sheets were available., the remaining daily reports were not. In all about .5 c.f. of material was removed.