The night Walter arrived home he awakened me by tapping on my bedroom window, and when I opened the door to let him in the house the first words he said was, "I have some bad news!" I thought, "Darn, I'll bet they've told the glider pilots they can't get married until after they graduate, as that was the rule for the air force cadets." Instead, Walter pulled his empty wallet out of his pocket saying that even though he'd been in the Service for almost six months his pay voucher hadn't caught up with him, so he hadn't been paid. I gave a sigh of relief, and said, "Oh, is that all?" I knew that my parents had given Jack $ 100 when he was married, so we could count on the same, plus there was 500 dollars in the bank which belonged to Walter, which we hoped to keep as an emergency fund, since it was from his brother's insurance. We agreed to leave that intact, to be sent for if needed at a later date. So, the wedding plans proceeded as scheduled. The account in the paper read as follows: COUPLE EXCHANGE WEDDING VOWS IN GARDEN RITUAL-Before 50 reltives and close friends Miss La Verne Boone and Staff Sgt. Walter Heffner exchanged wedding vows Sunday afternoon in the garden of the Boone home. The Rev. Frank Kepner officiated at the ceremony. (Then, the paragraphs about parents, descriptions of decorations, attendants, etc.) For the occasion the bride chose a street length dress of black bengaline faile trimmed in white lace with black accessories. A corsage of orchids and bouvardia and a gold locket, a gift of the bridegroom, completed her costume. (A little more about the ceremony, where we attended school, etc.) Then; The young couple left immediately for Albuquerque, N.M., where Sgt. Heffner is stationed as a glider pilot with the advanced glider training unit at the army field.
Thus started the most important chapter of my life....
the wedding was very simple, as was the custom during wartime, plus the short span of time that was available to engineer the plans, and went off without a hitch. Jack had been assigned the task of picking up the punch from the Betsy Ross ice cream parlour, which he managed to get as far as the front porch of our house before it slipped out of his hands. I might add that he was on furlough from the air force. Anyway, he assured me that he could make the punch just as good as Betsy Ross, which he proceeded to do, and it turned out fine. That was the only crisis. And, thus started our lifetime together.

I really enjoyed the courses at Woodbury, but as I approached the halfway point, in the travels to a degree, my conscience was bothering me more and more. I knew I wasn't cut out to be an interior decorator. While most of the students were going into fits of ecstasy over a Louis XIV chair or some other intricately carved object, I'd be standing in the background thinking it looked like a dust-catcher, or was hideously ugly. It more and more seemed to be a waste of my time, and family money, to be having such a good time, accomplishing very little of benefit. It was ery doubtful that I would ever use the knowledge gained in my own home someday, as the only homes we were learning to decorate were mansions. So, after some soul searching, and quite a bit of regret, I informed Dad that I wanted to quit Woodbury and enroll in Beauty College. He sort of groaned and said, "You went halfway through junior college taking a business course, now you go halfway through Woodbury College and you propose to quit that; What guarantee do I have that you'll complete the beauty school course?" I assured him that if he paid the entire fee when I enrolled I'd finish the nine month's schooling if it killed me! The fee was $100, plus a bit more for supplies and books. The school was in Ontario, just seven miles east of Pomona, and I never worked or studied harder in my life, nor enjoyed it more. Some nights i'd drag myself home, too tired to eat, before dropping into bed, but I'd fond something that I had a natural atitude for, and when that happens the work is so exhilerating. On Monday, December 8, 1941 I was standing at my station, doing some lady's hair, while listening to President Franklin D. Roosevelt make a eclaration of war against Japan, as they had attacked Pearl Harbor in Hawaii the day before. Thus started the war years......
I'm sure the other students were like myself, that day, inthat we didn't realize what it meant to have our country go to war, and what an enormous change it would make in all our lives. The women, who were in the chairs, having theit hair done seemed to be much more affected, as some had boys who were in the age group that would be called upon to fight that war, and some could remember the trauma of World War 1. As for myself, it didn't seem logical that any war with Japan could possibly last more than six months. After all, that was such a tiny country and we were much larger and more powerful. Of course, we hadn't been informed that our Navy had been nearly destroyed at Pearl Harbor, or the situation would have seemed much more serious. Walter immediately started talking about joining the air force, since he was already flying anyway, and that possibility brought up the subject of marriage once more. We decided to become engaged at Christmas time, so went shopping for a ring. We kept is a secret, though, so after the ring was chosen we wrapped it in sucessively bigger boxes until it looked anything but what it was, and put it under the tree at my home. On Christmas Eve, when the family and relatives were assembled for the gift opening ceremony, my Aunt Norma kept brining that box to me to open, and I kept sending it back saying I wanted to open it last. Finally, the time came when that was the only gift left unopened, and everyone watched as I slowly began taking the wrappings off. When I reached the small ring box everyone, but Dad, gave out squeals of delight, and ran over to look at the ring. When I glanced over at him his eyes were full of tears. Later when Walter brought me home after we'd gone out for awhile, Dad was waiting up to talk to me. He wanted to know when we planned to get married and I said, "Oh, not until the war is over!" That seemed to make a big difference in the way he accepted the news, and he erased the frown from his face. Since Walter and I really did intend to wait that long to get married, he tried to find a solution to our being seperated by long distance while he was in the service. We still thought the war was going to be a short term affair, even thought we were not only fighting Japan, but had also entered the war in Europe against Germany and Italy on December 11. Walter heard about the call for men to join the Glider Corps, and the most appealing point being that the training would be at Twenty Nine Palms, in California. So, he signed up for that branch of the air force, and was shipped off to Ft. Sumner New Mexico (crossed out), by train, in June. That day was also the day that Jack, my brother, was married to Eulalie Nesbit. That event was welcomed by our parents as a "step" towards getting Jack a deferment, as they intended on putting Jack's name as part owner of the cattle ranch in Bly, Oregon. That would automatically make him eligible to escape the draft, the ambition of almost every father of a son at that point. Lalie and Jack lasted just a month on that isolated ranch when we received a phone call from Jack, one night, saying he had joined the Air Force and he wanted Mother and I to drive up to Oregon to get Lalie. I was just completing my beauty school course, so soon as I took the State Board tests, we went up and brought her home. After receiving my license, I started working in a beauty shop, writing letters to Walter, and looking for his in the mail, filled the days until early September. He phoned one evening to say he was now stationed in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and would be getting a week's furlough in about a week and why don't we get married? So, I quit by job, shopped for the wedding ring to match the engagement ring, purchased some luggage, and then waited for Walter to break the news to his parents. Time was flying and they were the only ones who didn't know that their only child was getting married within a week! Fearing they would hear from someone else I dragged myself over to their house one night to break the news. His Mother immediately started to cry, but his dad started talking about how much nicer it would be for him to have a home to come back to each day, instead of living in the barracks on the field, etc. etc. So, even though his Mother wasn't too thrilled, she pulled herself together and tried to be resigned to the idea.

After graduation from high school I wasn't sure what direction I wanted to go, so enrolled in the first year of junior college, still concentrating mostly on a business course. Walter started flying lessons, which was one of the choices in junior college. He earned flying time by ferrying planes each morning and evening from one airport, on the south side of town , to another north of town. I was his first passenger after he received his pilot's license, and we made regular hops, mostly on Sundays, using up flying time that he'd earned during the week. We'd fly down to the beach, always careful to have plenty of altitude so when the motor would periodically quit we could dive to get it to start again! Usually, when Walter would be on his evening flying run he'd dive at our house as he passed over. Since our family was at the dinner table about that time, my father would glare at the ceiling when that awful noise would be decending, then say to me, "You don't go up in the air with that crazy nut, do you?" I recal those words very well as it was one of the few times I failed to tell the truth to my father. I'm pretty sure he knew the truth, but felt it was his duty to let me know he didn't think it was such a great idea.
After one year of junior college, I decided it would be kind of exciting to go away to college, so started looking around for something more interesting and exciting than business courses. I don't know how I heard bout Woodbury College, in Los Angeles, but it grabbed my interest, especially the interior decorating course which was offered there. Woodbury was a professional school, that one could earn a diploma in the period of two years, as it was a year-round session of classes with no vacations, sports program, or anything else which might prolong the quest. Dad finally said "yes" to my proposal, especially when we located THE EVANGELINE RESIDENCE FOR WOMEN, located just a block from Woodbury College for me to stay in. It was a four story brick building run by the Salvation Army. The first floor was occupied by the lobby and large dining room. No males were allowed on the upper floors where two girls, or women, were assigned to each room. My first roomate was a girl named Robertellen Corbin, from Oklahoma, who was also attending Woodbury. She was only there for a couple of months as her boyfriend showed up and persuaded her to return home. Then, I returned from home, after spending the weekend, one Sunday Evening and my new roommate had moved into our room. She was also from Oklahoma and her name was Dorothy Jo Cathey, enrolled as a business major at Woodbury. Little did she, or I, know what a great influence on each other's lives we'd have, especially on hers, as I will explain later.
Just prior to Dorothy Jo becoming my roommate, I had pledged to Sigma Iota Chi Sorority. I'd been invited to parties from all three of the sororitys, but when the invitations arrived, I chose Sigma Iota Chi, because I liked the girls in it best. I'd been at Woodbury just a short while when Jack decided to go there, and enrolled as a business major. That gave D.J. and I the brilliant idea of moving into an apartment, since I knew my parents would never consent to that, unless Jack was with us. There was a hotel right by the college, which also had apartments to rent, so we chose one in that. The rent was $60 a month, completely furnished and all utilities paid, and besides being quite nice it was very convenient to school. I don't think that arrangement lasted much longer than a month, since we soon discovered that the buying of food and preparation of meals took up more time than we thought it would. Jack moved into his fraternity house, and D.J. and I moved into my sorority house just a few doors away. It took a little persuation to get D.J. in as she was a member of another sorority, but since I wouldn't move in unless she came too, it was o.k.'d finally. Jack and I drove home to Pomona each Friday, after school, to spend the weekend, and sometimes D.J. came home with us. Walter would round up one of his flying friends to take D.J. up in the plane, and we'd get in another, and off we'd go into "the wild blue yonder". D.J. was supposed to be engaged to a boy back in Oklahoma; even had the engagement ring which she kept in the dresser drawer, but they'd agreed to date others while they were seperated by so many miles. One day one of my friends, at school, was notified that her father was very ill and she must go home immediately, so I helped her pack up her things. That evening she showed up at the house, and had me come downstairs to meet two young men from her hometown in Oklahoma, who were living in Long Beach now. They asked me to go with them to the Ice Capades, then we'd take Betty to the bus station afterwards as she had a ticket for midnight. We had a really nice time and, I think, managed to cheer Betty up a little as she was not only saddened about the news of her father, but hated to be leaving school, probably for good.
Their names were Doug and Charles. When they took me back to the sorority house Doug asked me for a date the folowing Monday night, as that was the only night they had off from work. I started to explain that I was going steady and Betty must have neglected to mention that fact. He replied, "Oh, you mean the love life in the old hometown? Well, Squirrel Top (my sorority nickname), I'm not asking for love, just a date. You see, we're finding it difficult to meet nice girls here in California and maybe through you, living here in a sorority house, maybe we can meet some. Now, will you please go with me Monday, and can you get a date for Charles?" Well, to tell the truth I was so impressed with that approach, plus they were such nice fellows with those delightful southern accents, not to mention southern charm, I readily agreed. Unfortunately, I didn't realize what the results would be, when I approached some of the unattached girls in the house, about going on a blind date on a Monday night. They all turned me down, saying they had to study, or rest up from a grueling weekend, or whatever. Finally, I turned to Dorothy jo with my plea, as Monday was rapidly approaching and I still didn't have a date for Charles, and had no way of contacting him about my bad luck. At first, Dorothy jo flatly refused. She had left Oklahoma after a very traumatic experience there; something about seeing a terrible accident with a bus in which many people had been killed, and she didn't want to meet anyone from there as it might bring back those memories, plus going on a Monday night date was just plain crazy. Finally, when she saw how upset I was getting, she agreed to go "Just this once" and I shouldn't get myself into such a situation ever again!
Well, this rambling dissertation has to come to a close, so I'll just say, we went out, and when we returned home and I asked her how she liked Charles she replied, "He's the nicest, most refined young man I've ever met, and he's the one I'm going to marry. My engagement ring will be in the mail tomorrow back where it came from!" Sometime later they were married, and still are. Have two sons, a daughter, and several grandchildren.
I might as well add that I continued to see Doug for quite some time, since Dorothy Jo and Charles were dating, and, yes, Walter eventually found out about my "infidelity" and was quite unhappy about it. However, Doug joined the airforce so faded out of the picture.

(Insert, or afterthought)

Sometime, either in my junior or senior year in high school, I joined a civilian rescue team. During the mid "30's" we had quite a serious flood in our area, and the road gong up to the nearby mountains was washed out, making it impossible for the people living up there to get out, or even to get any food or supplies. So, someone had the bright idea of training a rescue team on horseback for any such future emergencys, and WOW, that sounded really great to me. Never mind that I had no idea what such a project entailed, and hardly one end of a horse from the other! There were approximately 15 young people who responded to the request for volunteers, so we proceeded to meet once a week at a rental stable outside of town with a drill instructor. One of the things we had to learn was how to lift an unconcious person up on our horse. That was a real dilly. I never conquered my fear of horses and, I suppose the fact they were rental horses which had a tendency to want to stay in the stables munching hay, rather than participate in the foolish shenanigans we were putting them through. After getting them saddled, enroute to the arena, they required all kinds of friendly persuasion to get them to move, then after drilling for an hour we turned them towards the stable and they took off at full gallup, making it a necessity to hang on for dear life.
One night, I returned home late after our training session and my parents weren't home to help take off the English boots we had to wear. Jack had gone to bed, and as was his custom, had his bedroom door locked. I requested his aid, then pleaded, then threatened dire retaliations, to no avail. As a result, I went to bed with boots and jodpurs on, smelling mighty horsey and dreaming up terrible deeds to pay Jack back. I imagine the novelty and romantic notions of actually participating in a rescue mission finally wore thin, or I grew tired of trying to lift supposedly nconcious persons up on the horse, since I never received a completion diploma. Anyway, the project slowly fizzled as people came to realize it was an impractical idea.

ON TO HIGH SCHOOL

During the first or second week of the tenth grade I noticed that the boy who had the role of the pilot in the ninth grde play was in my geometry class. One evening, Bob Heffner stopped by our house for a visit, as he sometimes did. Bob had a list of girls as long as your arm that he kept on his string of "pleasant diversions". I asked him if he had a brother named Walter, and when he replied in the affirmative I said," Hey, he's pretty cute, why don't you bring him over here with you sometime?" the very next evening Bob showed up on the doorstep with Walter in tow! That occured maybe two more times, and after that Walter came as a single. Our first date consisted of meeting him after a high school band concert, in which he was playing, at the Fox Theater. He walked home with me, and that was the beginning of a six year friendship which eventually blossumed ino much more. There was a period, during those years, when the situation became too confining and we broke up for about a year. During that time we both dated other people, in fact, Walter was going steady with another girl when we started looking at each other once more. I neglected to mention that previous to the "breaking up", near the end of summer vacation after tenth grade, in fact, just the first week of school in the eleventh grade Bob, Walter's brother, was killed in a bicycle, car accident. The two boys had been over to our house looking at pictures our family had taken on a Canadian vacation, that we'd just returned home from. Bob went home early to work on his bike, which he was making into a racing bike, and Walter soon followed. When he got home Bob, and a friend, were just finishing the project, so they asked Walter to get his bike, so the three of them could go riding around a few blocks to try out Bob's bike. A few blocks from home Bob was racing down the street with his head down in a racing posture, with Walter and the other boy following behind, when coming to an innersections a car came around the corner. Bob struck the car, his head hiting just above the door on the passenger side. He never regained consciousness. What a terrible loss of a very fine young man.
Walter and I were driving out around Puddlestone Lake one evening, sometime during the eleventh grade period, when Walter brought up the subject of marriage. Needless to say, a girl always remembers her first marriage proposal and the time and place it occurred! It came as a complete surprise to me, and all I could say was, "Don't you think we're a little young?" he replied, "Oh, I don't mean now, I'm thinking about maybe ten years in the future!" Then, he added, "I like to make plans quite a while ahead." I found myself answering, "The person that I marry has to have ten thousand dollars in the bank." Walter thought about that for a minute, and said, "Well, it will probably take me that long to accomplish it." To my recollection, the subject never came up again until after World War 2 started!

A GIANT STEP TO JUNIOR HIGH

This next chapter in my life deserves its' own title, with the words underlined, as I look back on those three years with such great pleasure. Perhaps there were snags along the way in my early teen years, from time to time, but I can only recall the happy times. I had a special girlfriend, named Anita; academics proved to be easy for me, so my grades were no problem; I loved sports, so physical education classes were the highlight of each day; I took dancing and acrobatic lessons once a week which I loved; Joined the Campfire Girls, and the group turned out to be so congenial that we stayed together for years, going on camp outs to the mountains or beach, thanks to a wonderful woman and leader who stuck with us. She was "an old maid school teacher" and looking back now, I realize we must have been the family she never had, for how else could that good woman put up with that rowdy bunch of girls for so long?
Boys became a "minor" interest during those years, but formal dates were unheard of, except among the few girls who were considered to be "kind of fast". Occasionally a boy might walk home with you, and quite often they;d show up on Saturday if they just happened to be in the neighborhood! notice that I said they because they usually appeared in pairs; courage in numbers, I guess. We'd moved out of the apartment, and now lived just around the corner on Gibbs Street in a small frame house which had a cement porch just perfect for Anita and I to practice our tap dances on.
When I started ninth grade my homemaking teacher had been mistakenly assigned both a sewing and a cooking class during the same period and I was asked to teach the seventh grade class sewing. They just made aprons and potholders, but I was so proud of that assignment. That year I was elected President of the Girls' league which consisted of all the girls in the school, nd besides coordinating various events we held a girls' assembly in the auditorium once a week. It gave me a little public speaking experience which is definitely helpful. Our physical education teacher had all the girls compete in a series of elimination races to see who was the fastest runner. On the last day of the races it had come down to myself and another girl named Kathryn Tomlinson. One look at Kathryn's long muscular legs adn few gave me even a slim chance of winning. Our teacher had been boasting to the boys' coach about how fast her girls could run, so he showed up with his stopwatch, along with about half the school. We ran a fifty yard sprint, and doggone if I didn't nose out Kathryn with a time of 6.0 seconds flat!
Near the completion of the ninth grade some of us were chosen to take dramtic roles in the Ninth Grade Play. I don't recall the name of it, or what role I had in it, so it must have been a minor part, but I remember that Anita had the feminine starring role. She was the girlfriend of a bot who was a pilot in the play. One day, as I stood below the stage, watching our drama teacher giving instructions to Anita, and the pilot, she stopped instructing for a moment to say, "my, you make a nice looking couple!" And, I thought, they certainly do. Little did I know that at that moment I was looking at my future husband!! Walter was in another homeroom, and since the three ninth grade homerooms were rather competitive we seldom intermingled, so that was really the first time I gave him a second look. About a week before the ninth grade graduation I was called out of class to report to the Principal's Office, and as that usually meant TROUBLE, it must have been a very scared little girl who showed up at his door, because when he looked at me he hastened to assure me that nothing was wrong. He just wanted to let me know that I had been chosen to receive the American Legion Award during the graduation ceremonies! One boy, and one girl, plus two runnersup, were honored each year, and we were informed early enough to have our pictures taken for the account which would be in the local paper, but we were instructed to tell no one except our parents. What a proud and happy little gal flew back to the classroom, in marked contrast to the one who earlier went dragging down the hall, trembling from head to toe, wondering what awful fate awaited in the Principal's Office. I still have the bronze medal that was presented to me on graduation day by the head of The American Legions. On one side is embossed a lady holding the flag surrounded in large letters FOR GOD AND COUNTRY. On the other side is embossed an eagle with wings spread wide, and underneath, the words AMERICAN LEGION SCHOOL AWARD. Under those words it says: COURAGE CHARACTER SERVICE COMPANIONSHIP SCHOLARSHIP with the American Legion insignia on the bottom. To this day part of what thrilling day returns every time I think about it!

Before the beginning of the etntrace into the sixth grade our family moved to Pomona to be closer to Dad's work. Jack and I attended Kauffman School. I think the highlight of that year in school was the fire escae which led from our sixth grade room on the third floor of that old wooden building. It was a steel tube, which we were allowed to slide down to the ground, if the teacher felt the class had behaved properly during the day. A fine tool for the teacher to keep us in line, and a special reward for the children. Our first home, in Pomona, was an apartment house on Fifth Ave. My bed was in the living room, which disappeared during the day into the wall, and slid out like a drawer each night. Guess that detail is etched in my memory, because that was the year of the BIG earthquake in California. It happened one evening about five o'clock. I had been visiting a girlfriend who was sick and was walking home from her house. At first I thoght something was the matter with me until I saw people running our of their houses. I had seen a movie about the San Fransisco quake, which showed the earth opening up an people falling into the gaping cracks, so I started running very fast in order to jump those cracks! We had more quakes of lesser intensity all night, but still my bed kept threatening to roll back into the wall which made me a little uneasy; also, the fire whistle blew at intervals all night trying to persuade men to volunteer to go down to some of the beach cities, to dig out people who were buried under demolished buildings. Long Beach was particularly hard hit.