Our Growing Family (continued)

by Eric Sheptock

I obviously spent a considerable amount of time in the hospital, after which I went to a foster home, also in Atlantic City. My foster mother, Esther Racks, (who is now deceased) was a nurse, as is my adoptive mother. While in the foster home, I was an only child to an elderly woman. I was spoiled. She, being at that time in her seventies, had to have the efforts to have me adopted or placed in a different foster home expedited.

Many pairs of prospective adoptive parents considered adopting me. However, the doctors gave me very little hope. They said that I probably wouldn’t finish school. I did. (And I was a straight A student at that.) They didn’t think that I would be able to socially adapt. Take it for what it’s worth to you, but I’m one of the most outgoing people in the world. The doctors said that I wouldn’t be able to hold a job. I worked at Shands Hospital at UF for 6 years. I’m known for my diligence and accuracy at pretty much any place that I work (when I work).

So, in August of 1974, a Polish man and an Italian woman named Rudy and Joanne Sheptock decided to adopt me. They took me into their house in Chester, NJ when I was 5 years old. As for Esther Racks, she would die 4 years later in 1978.

My sister Mary Elizabeth joined the family at the same time as me, having come from Morristown, NJ. We were the 9th and 10th children in the Sheptock family. At that time they had 6 natural children and 4 that were adopted or would later on be adopted. She and I were adopted at the courthouse in Elizabeth, NJ a year after entering the Sheptock household.

That same year, 1975, we moved to a mansion in Peapack, NJ, which is in Somerset County. This mansion had 13 bedrooms, 2 living rooms, a library, 7 bathrooms, a 3 car garage and sat on 5 acres of land. It was the former library for the Kate Macy Ladd Convalescent Hospital.

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