Julia Ann Sparkman Shepard, 93, of Huntsville died Tuesday at the Magnolia Trace facility. Her graveside service will take place this spring at Arlington National Cemetery, where her late husband, Rear Admiral Tazewell T. Shepard, Jr., is buried.
Mrs. Shepard was born in Albertville, delivered by her maternal grandfather, Dr. Glenn Hall; she grew up in Huntsville where her father, John Sparkman, established a law practice; and she attended high school in both Huntsville and Washington, D.C., after her father’s election to Congress in 1936. Mrs. Shepard attended Randolph Macon Women’s College in Virginia until she married her husband just before he shipped out to the Pacific in World War II.
Mrs. Shepard lived in several states on the east and west coast during her husband’s military career, and they retired in the early 1980’s in Washington, D.C. Both played bridge avidly, and Mrs. Shepard was a member of several women’s clubs and served on the Advisory Board at The Morris & Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation. In 2013, Admiral and Mrs. Shepard relocated to Huntsville.
Survivors are one son, Tazewell T. Shepard, III and his wife of Huntsville, three grandsons, and one great grandson.
In lieu of flowers, memorial donations may be made to the Alzheimer’s Association
