Doneva Nell Shepard was well-named. Whether she was sheparding the family farm animals to higher ground as she did in the 1948 Vanport flood at the tender age of twelve, or sheparding together the facts of family history for her own family and many other friends and acquaintances, she was always true to her name. Her unique first name was a combination of her adoptive parents names' (Donald and Geneva Shepard) who brought her into their lives hours after her birth. As she grew up, it became a mission for her to learn who her birth parents were which was not easy in the 1950's. She never met her birth parents, but learned who they were and spent countless hours working on family history and an impressive data base of names as well as a delightful store of stories and lore. Her grandfather, John Jacob Hastings, was an absolutely fascinating figure for Doneva, a man whose rise and fall and accomplishments and anguish were the stuff of legends. Doneva's life was a colorful and full one. She was a child of the beautiful state of Oregon where she spent her entire life. As an accomplished horsewoman, when she was only a teen-ager in the early 1950's, she was named Queen of the Buckaroo Rodeo in Molalla, and also had the honor of representing her beloved state of Oregon at the World Championship Rodeo at Madison Square Garden in New York City and the Boston Garden. Although she left the bright lights of the Garden behind, she would fondly recount those rodeo days when she met Roy Rogers and Dale Evans, for the rest of her life. She married three times, had four children, and happily pursued various enthusiasms including sewing, photography, tole and decorative painting, and china painting. She volunteered many hours at the Troutdale Historical Society as a genealogist.

(Her birth mother's profile (Helene Hastings Younker)is #56911566).