Sometime, in this time frame, my father decided to retire, so he proposed that Walter, Jack, and Glen Ehresman, the third additional partner, but him out at the market. This didn't include the building and property, just the business and inventory. Shortly after taking over we were robbed at gunpoint. It happened just before Christmas, and since we didn't have any insurance for that sort of thing, it was a real disaster for the new owners. The masked gunman got away with about $4500. After that, we installed a safe and used that for the money instead of dropping the money off at the police station each night after the close of business.
When the youngsters were four years old my parents were divorced. I suppose I should have been somewhat prepared for the shock of that, but I wasn't. Everything seemed fine through all the years of hard work while Jack and I were growing up, but upon Dad's retirement their differences magnified. Dad wanted to acquire a boat and spend weeks and months at a time cruising, fishing, and hunting, mostly in wilderness areas, and Mother was deathly afraid of the water, plus she hated to be away from home longer than a few days at a time. After some time passed, Dad met and married Elsie, who he'd med while he was staying up in Washington, where he was living after the divorce. Mother also remarried to a long time family friend, Harvey Martin. Both marriages proved to be most successful, as each now had spouses with the same likes and dislikes. So, that tragic event in my life which seemed so devastating at the time, turned out very well, even though I will never understand how a marriage, which has seemingly gone along so well for so many years, can suddenly take a turn for worse, leading to divorce.
Now we come to the time for the twins to start the school years. Although we'd decided to keep them separated in school, it was necessary for them to be in kindergarten together, as there was just the one class at the school they would attend. So, I got busy and embroidered their names on shirts, so the teacher could tell them apart. David managed to have quite a serious accident at school one day. A little girl was chasing him, and in his eagerness to stay out of her grasp, he pushed his arm through one of the windows, when the teacher appeared in the doorway where he was headed. Walter and I happened to be sitting out in front of the school, waiting for the boys, and recognized the sound when David screamed. Walter vaulted over the brick wall that surrounded the play area, and I ran around to the front door to be greeted by a frantic teacher holding David's badly gashed arm over a sink. There was so much blood gushing from the cut we were afraid, for a time, that an artery had been severed, so Walter put a tourniquet above the cut. The school nurse soon appeared, and she and Walter took David to the doctor's office, while I delivered Richard to his grandmother's house, then joined them at the doctor's where we were relieved to hear an artery wasn't cut. It took many stitched, inside and out, to close the wound as the muscle in the upper arm had been severed, but no crucial nerves were involved, so the growth of the arm wouldn't be affected. That night the boys' teacher came to the house to see how the injured boy was faring and discovered, for the first time that it was David, and not Dick, as she had put on the accident report at school.
After that incident, all went along smoothly for a few years. Jack was called back into the airforce because of the Korean War, as he'd remained in the Reserves after WW 2, which left Walter and Glen the only remaining partners at the store. I'd become quite active in the P.T.A. and other affairs at the boys' school, and when the youngsters were completing the second grade I was elected president of the P.T.A. for the following school year. That gave me all summer vacation to persuade people to serve on the Board with me and to set up the program for meetings in which I'd have to preside over. By September, all items on the agenda had been taken care of and we set about planning our money making venture which would carry us monetarily through the school year. Each year the P.T.A. would put on a Fiesta, with lots of game booths, a dinner, and various food booths scattered throughout the school yard which was attended, not only by all the students and their families, but lots of people in the area who didn't have children in school. Then, I discovered I was pregnant once more. We'd discussed the possibility of having another child; in fact, when the twins were about four I'd gone to the doctor to find out if all the "reproductive apparatus" was in good shape. But, we had never quite gotten to the point of making up our minds to go ahead with the project; then nature stepped in and took it out of our hands, and we were delighted at the prospect of another member of the family. My first visit to the doctor wasn't real reassuring, however. I'd picked a lady doctor this time, as the one we'd had with the twins retired, and she said all was not well with my uterus. Pregnancy had caused it to slip out of place, for some reason or another, and there was only a fifty-fifty chance the pregnancy would proceed satisfactorily. She also told me that the only way I could retain that fifty-fifty chance would be if I broke up each day into four segments by going to bed that many times for a minimum of thirty minutes each time, knee chest position. So, I'd be at school for awhile, making preparations for the Fiesta, directing volunteers, etc., then disappear for a period of time. I hadn't told anyone that I was pregnant, so when I'd return people were always looking for me to ask questions about something or another, and wondering where I'd disappeared to. Finally, the Fiesta had a successful conclusion, and at the next visit to the doctor she reported the situation was improved. All went well until the end of my third month when I started to miscarry the baby. The doctor instructed me to go to bed and stay there and we'd see what developed. I've often wondered if we'd known then what was in store for us, if I'd had the courage to continue trying to have this baby. Sometimes, I guess it's best that we can't see what's ahead. Anyway, I had to turn over the P.T.A. duties over to the vice-pres., and with the help of family and a dear friend, who lived next door, I managed to see each day run into the next, still threatening to miscarry, even though I continued to stay in bed. The doctor would stop by the house to check me and take blood counts every few days, and the day came when the count was so low that it became imperative that I have an immediate blood transfusion. The doctor's hospital didn't have and "B" positive blood on hand, and when she phoned other hospitals in the area they didn't have any either. She called the Red Cross blood bank, in Los Angeles, and told them to get some ready for a trip to Pomona, so Walter jumped in the car to go in to pick it up. I was to make the trip to the hospital five times for transfusions, and several other times to stay a few days when the situation looked bleak. We got through Christmas somehow. All gifts were ordered through the Sears catalog and the tree never looked prettier after the twins and Walter gave it their loving attention. Dr. Carter was beginning to have second thoughts about the decision to keep trying, so at the end of the fifth month she asked Walter and I if we'd go along with the decision that a specialist made after examining me. She told us that the day might come when the transfusions might not bring the count back up, and if that happened we'd be in big trouble. Five other doctors, at the hospital, kept telling her that we were never going to have a live baby, no matter how much effort we put into it. The specialist was coming to Pomona for consultations on difficult cases, and it was with a great deal of trepidation that I went to the hospital one morning, knowing how much his decision would affect us. The doctor examined me and reported the baby had a strong heart heat, then he said he was sure I'd accomplish what I'd set out to do because I had red hair! Said he had a red-headed daughter and knew how determined that type was. He also said that the baby would be born prematurely, but we'll just keep hoping it won't be too premature. Walter and I went back home floating on air after hearing something positive for a change, and I climbed back into bed with more hope than I'd had for quite some time. Time passed slowly until I reached the end of the sixth month. I'd had contractions ever since I'd gone to bed three months previous, but this time there was discomfort with the contractions, which seemed ominous. When Walter called the doctor and reported this new development, she said she'd meet us at the hospital, and after checking me she said, "Well, La Verne, you've carried this baby just as long as you're going to." My heart fell, as I knew there was such a slim chance for the baby to survive being born three months premature. However, the doctor gave orders to get an incubator warmed up, and to start some Alivare flowing through the oxygen tube. She had previously told me that Alivare had just recently been developed during the past year, and had already saved many prematures lives by clearing their lungs when they were too weak to do it themselves. Less than an hour after we arrived at the hospital our tiny baby boy came into the world, as I kept my eyes tightly closed, thinking there was so little chance that he'd live, and it would lessen the heartbreak if I didn't see him. He cried, which kind of surprised me, as I thought he might be too weak to do that. After they put him into the incubator and took him into the nursery I opened my eyes and asked the doctor was it was, and she replied that it was a boy, but not to get my hopes up as she thought he was the smallest she had ever seen. She hadn't taken the time to weigh him, but felt it wasn't much over a pound! For the next two days I dreaded to have anyone enter my room, day or night, because I was so afraid they were coming to tell me the baby had expired. Finally, on the third day the doctor came into the room wearing a wide grin. She had just weighed him and was delighted to find that the grand total was 1 pound, 15 1/2 oz. She told me to get out of bed and get myself down to the nursery to see my new son. I asked her if she could say he had a good chance of surviving, and she replied that she couldn't give me a whole lot of hope until after the ninth day. So, down the hall I went, trying not to look as scared and nervous as I felt. The nurses had pushed the incubator up to the window so I could get a good look at our little Kevin Robert Heffner, and I stood there with perspiration pouring off me, actually making a puddle on the floor! Here was this tiny fellow, looking quite a bit like a baby bird; a head about the size of a tennis ball; I remember his ankles seemed just the diameter of my little finger. He made all the other babies in the nursery look like monsters, they just seemed huge. He had no clothes on, not even a diaper. They said it was easier to regulate and keep his temperature more even, plus they didn't want to handle him more than necessary by putting clothes on him. I went home armed with the paraphenalia needed to pump milk, which I was told wouldn't last more than a couple of weeks, as that method doesn't tend to stimulate milk production as it would if the baby could nurse naturally, but they wanted to have mother's milk just as long as possible for him. I'd set the alarm for every four hours through the night, and since it took 45 minutes to an hour for the pumping procedure sleep was not too plentiful, but knowing it would be a temporary schedule made it easier. Walter would deliver the milk each morning on his way to work, and make a second delivery around 11 p.m. each night when he'd pull up a chair in front of the nursery to look at his wee son, sometimes for an hour. The nurses came to depend on him to fix some of the electrical apparatus which would go on the blink sometimes, and if there was a nervous father pacing the hall, waiting for his baby to be born, Walter would try to calm his fears. The doctor kept congratulating me and encouraging me about the milk production, and one night the nurses sent me an "Elsie, the cow" medal. Sure enough, it must have been all I needed for the supply to continue for the entire three months that Kevin stayed in the incubator. We asked the doctor if we could bring him home on Mother's Day as he had attained the 5 lbs. and 4 oz. weight we'd been shooting for, so she phoned the hospital and told them to get some clothes on PeeWee Heffner as he was going home. One hour later they called her back to report that he didn't like wearing clothes, really putting on a show of disapproval! And the doctor replied "Take them off then. Whatever Little Heffner wants, he gets!" So, next day when we arrived at the hospital we had to dress him for his first time, which he objected to with gusto, and continued to voice his objections for months after he joined our family. David and Richard couldn't stand to hear their little brother cry, and neither could their parents, so he spent a great deal of time being held and rocked.