Sam Sheppard - A Promising Future

Samuel Holmes Sheppard was the third son born to Dr. Richard and Ethel Sheppard. His father founded Bay View Hospital, an osteopathic (medical treatment of bones and muscle) facility located in an elite lakefront suburb on Cleveland's west side. Samuel graduated from Cleveland Heights High School the year after his high school sweetheart, Marilyn Reese. They were married in Hollywood, California, in 1945, while Samuel attended the Los Angeles College of Osteopathic Physicians and Surgeons.

In 1947 Samuel and Marilyn had a son and named him Sam. After receiving his medical degree, Samuel joined his father and two elder brothers, Richard and Stephen, in business. Sheppard moved his young family back to Bay Village, Ohio, and purchased a home on the shore of Lake Erie.

Sheppard took up surgical residence at Bay View Hospital, where he was called Dr. Sam to distinguish him from the other Dr. Sheppards. The family of physicians worked together and prospered at the hospital, the town's largest employer, as well as in their private practice in the nearby suburb of Fairview Park. For the next few years Dr. Sam was on emergency medical call more than one third of his evenings, just as he was on the holiday weekend of July 4, 1954.