He was born on September 11, 1855 on a farm at Ellenburg, Clinton County, New York, United States, the son of Rufus George and Charlotte (Douglas) Shepard. At fourteen he became practically an orphan through the death of his father and the permanent invalidism of his mother. After several years on the farm of an uncle at Madrid, New York, he went to live with his mother and sisters at Malone.
He attended Franklin Academy and distinguished himself both in studies and sports. He entered the civil engineering course at Cornell in 1876, paying his way largely with his earnings as a farm workman. After two years of study he determined to take up medicine and transferred to the University of Michigan, where he graduated in 1881, second in a class of a hundred.
fter graduation he taught in a district school for a year. Later he spent fitting himself for the varied work of medical missionary by serving as clinical assistant in the New York Ophthalmic and Aural Institute under Herman Knapp and in taking a course in practical dentistry.
Sailing the same year for Turkey, he went to Aintab as professor of surgery in the newly opened medical department of Central Turkey College, an institution founded by American Board missionaries. In 1888 lack of funds led to the closing of this department, but Shepard continued his connection with the college as physician in charge of the small Azariah Smith Memorial Hospital. Meanwhile he carried on an extensive practice in the town and surrounding country, often traveling on horseback to Marash, Aleppo, or even Diyarbekir when called for serious illness.
After outbreaks in 1909 in Cilicia and the Amanus Mountains, he was appointed chairman of the committee for relief and rebuilding set up by Jemal Pasha, the powerful "Young Turk" governor of Adana. When deportation threatened the Armenians of Aintab in 1915, he went to Constantinople in an effort to avert it. The government granted his request for Protestant and Catholic Armenians, and he stayed at the capital for two months, working in a Red Cross hospital among Turks wounded at Gallipoli. Famed throughout the wide provinces between the Mediterranean and the Tigris, he obtained from wealthy officials and nobles fees which helped support his hospital.
When he returned to Aintab in October, however, he found deportation in full swing. He spent the remaining months of his life in heroic work among plague-stricken refugees, from whom he contracted a fatal attack of typhus. He died in 1915.
Fred Douglas Shepard was one of the outstanding missionaries of his generation, and one who practised both medicine and Christianity. He played an important part in relief work after the Hamidian massacres of 1895, Adana massacres of 1909 and quelled a cholera epidemic among the Armenians of Zeitun. For energetic and fearless work in distributing funds and fighting disease among the refugees he received a medal from the Sultan and a congratulatory letter from Djemal Pasha, the governor general of Adana. In addition, Shepard also received a medal of merit from the Red Cross.
A man of short stature but unusual strength, Shepard was a great hunter and tireless rider, who was dismayed by no obstacle of road or weather. Patients of every faith sought his services and honored him as a surgeon of outstanding ability, strong character, and loyal friendships, and as one who sought always to promote mutual understanding among the embittered peoples of Turkey.
Quotes from others about the person
Upon his death, an Armenian is said to have remarked, "I have not seen Jesus, but I have seen Dr. Shepard. "
On July 5, 1882 he married Fanny Perkins Andrews, who had been one year behind him in medical school and was the daughter of Lorrin Andrews, missionary in Hawaii.
