She was married to prominent New York City lawyer, banker, and newspaper editor Elliott Fitch Shepard.

Mrs. Shepard fully financed and furnished the building which was named the "Margaret Louisa Home for Protestant Women".

Shepard was a lawyer, banker, and owner of the Mail and Express newspaper, as well as a founder and president of the New York State Bar Association.

[17] The Shepards owned a townhouse (double mansion) (1882) on Fifth Avenue and 52nd Street designed by John B. Snook, provided to them by her father and shared with her sister Emily Thorn Vanderbilt, who was married to William Douglas Sloane and, after his death, Henry White, the American Ambassador to France and Italy, and a signatory of the Treaty of Versailles.

[18] They also owned Woodlea, built between 1892 and 1895, a McKim, Mead & White-designed[19] country estate in Scarborough, New York, a neighborhood of Briarcliff Manor.