Lanier Allen:  

Life LANIER ALLEN'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY SINCE GRADUATION FROM LIBERTY UNION HIGH SCHOOL IN JUNE OF 1958 UPDATED NOV. 13, 2011 During the summer after Graduating from Liberty Union High School in Brentwood, CA in June of 1958, I had a job in Turlock, CA driving a forklift at a Peach Cannery. I also had some other Part Time Jobs as fillers. That fall of 1958 I went to College at Harding College in Arkansas and started my life away from Home. In June of 1959 I came home for the summer and got a job a the Paper Mill in Antioch, CA. I worked all shifts on a rotating basis. My Dad, Pete Allen, & I, along with a couple of family friends, also poured a lot of concrete that summer to finish off Dad's Garage, Driveway and Patio. At the end of that summer (fall of 1959), I went back East a little early to be in one friend's wedding and to go on a float/fishing/camping trip with another friend in Pocahontas, AR. I had met my future first wife, Alice, my freshman year and during our sophomore year in 1959-1960 we got more serious and decided to get married in Tulsa, OK, at her Mother's house, in Sept. 1960. I worked at the Paper Mill again during that summer of 1960, with a little break for my sister Charlotte & Dick Cosby's wedding on the 18th of June. Mom & Dad did not want me to get married, so I went back to Tulsa, OK the last of Aug. and Alice Jenkins & I were married on Sept. 3, 1960. Alice & I spent all of that School Year, 1960-1961 at Harding where my major was Pre-Med with a Minor in Math. Due to financial difficulties after marrying Alice, we returned to California in 1961 to work and go to School. After spending 6 months working in the Paper Mill in Antioch, CA, to save money for school and to pay for my oldest daughter, Lori, being born, I returned to School, this time in Chico, CA. I spent my last one and one-half years of School at Chico State Teachers College, now Cal State University. I changed my major to Physical Science in the School of Education, with a minor in Math. Because of the birth of my first daughter, Lori, and the necessity to support my family, I had decided to go into Teaching instead of Medicine. Following graduation with a BA in Physical Science from Chico State in1963 and a desire to stay near the Medical Field, I went to work at Stanford University for Dr. Norman Shumway & Dr. Richard Lower, who designed the technique for Heart Transplantation as a Resident under Dr. Shumway. I was a Research Assistant in the Cardiac Research Laboratory, operating the Heart-Lung Machine while we were doing Heart Transplants on dogs. I was very lucky to get in on the ground floor of a very new profession. In July of 1964, I went with Dr. Richard Lower to the Palo Alto VA Hospital, where we continued our Research on Heart Transplantation and started the Clinical Open Heart Surgery Program there. We did the Open Heart cases with Dr. Lower doing the Surgery while I operated the Heart-Lung Machine. In those days we were called Pump Techs, but now those same technicians are called Perfusionist. In Aug. of 1965 I moved with Dr. Lower to Richmond, VA, to the Medical College of VA where we started a Heart Transplant Research Program and a Clinical Open Heart Surgery Program. My second daughter, Dominique, was born in Sept. of 1965, shortly after arriving in Richmond. In May of 1968, we did our first Clinical Heart Transplant. My third daughter, Michelle was born on Oct. 30, 1968, the night we did our fourth Heart Transplant. During the next several years we did a large number of Open Heart Cases along with quite a few Heart Transplants. In Oct. of 1970, my first wife, Alice, died, leaving me with daughters of ages 2, 5, & 9. In Oct. of 1972, I married my second wife, Cynthia Thompson, (married 38 years as of Oct 2010. She was working in the Operating Room at MCV Hospital as a Scrub Nurse at the time. That is where we met. She has raised all of my 3 daughters as well as our son, Lee, who was born in June of 1975. For many years after our marriage, Cynthia was the Supervisor of our Cardiac Research Lab. Lori, my oldest daughter, went to college at UVA, where she met her first husband, Andrew Serrell. They had two boys, Sean & Ryan, that are ages 24 & 21 in Nov. of 2011. My middle daughter, Dominique went to Nursing School at VCU & married Joseph Hudert on August 9,1990. Dominique died in 1995 in Chester, VA. She and Joe had no children. Dominique was a Pediatric Airborn Nurse, stationed in Ft. Bragg, NC Dominique & Joe were both in Saudi Arabia & Kuwait during Desert Storm. My youngest daughter, Michelle, went to Nursing School in Rochester, NY. She married Tony Arduini in Nov. of 1988. Tony was also in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait during Desert Storm. Joe has been in Iraq and Afghanistan several times since then. Michelle is an ENT Nurse at MCV in Richmond. She and Tony have two boys, Josh & Alex, ages 18 & 10 in Oct. of 2011. They live in the RICHMOND, VA area. Mine & Cynthia's son, Lee, now lives at home with me (since Cynthia's death in Dec. of 2010). In Oct. of 1991 the Governor of VA gave State employees an offer I couldn't refuse. It gave me 31 years full retirement with a good retirement income. I retired with full benefits at age 51, and I'm still retired. I love it ! I wish everyone could get that chance. I have no problem staying busy. I fish & hunt a lot & garden. I also do a lot of Woodworking, mostly hand carving. My greatest love now is genealogy. I have been doing that since 1987. Cynthia was finally able to retire in Jan. of 2004. She enjoyed her retirement until her death on Dec.2, 2010.. Lanier Allen [Nov. 13, 2011] LANIER'S BIO SINCE GRADUATION FROM LIBERTY UNION HIGH SCHOOL IN JUNE OF 1958 After graduating from Liberty Union High School in Brentwood, CA, I spent 3 years at Harding College (now Harding University) in Searcy, AR. At Harding my major was pre-med with a minor in math. At Harding I met and married my first wife, Alice Jenkins White, from Tulsa, OK. We married just before our Junior year at Harding and then ran into financial difficulties when our first child, Lori, was born. In June of 1961, before Lori was born in Aug., we moved back out to CA because Jobs payed more there than in AR. Lori was born in Pittsburg, CA while I was working at a Paper Mill in Antioch. I spent one semester out of school to save money and pay for Lori's birth. In Jan. of 1962 we moved to Chico, CA where Alice & I both enrolled at Chico State College, now Cal. State Chico. After graduation from Chico in June 1963 with a BA in Physical Science and Minor in Math, we moved to Palo Alto, CA after I found a Job at Stanford School of Medicine there. The position was that of a Research Assistant in the Cardiac Research Lab of Dr. Norman Shumway and Dr. Richard Lower. At the time Dr. Lower was a fellow in the Division of Cardiac Surgery under Dr. Shumway. My job was to be operating the Heart-Lung-Machine in the Research Lab. At the time I didn't know what that involved. Technicians were only being trained on the job in Research Labs of Medical Schools across the country at that time. I worked primarily with Dr. Lower, who became my mentor and is still one of my best friends today. Dr. Lower designed the technique currently used in Cardiac Transplantation while under Dr. Shumway's tutelage. After I learned to operate the machine, we started doing four Heart Transplants per week on experimental animals. We had great success during my first six months there, as well as in the following years. I went to work at Stanford in Nov. of 1963 and the following July(1964) Dr. Lower finished his fellowship under Dr. Shumway. He and I then moved to the Palo Alto VA Hospital, about three miles from Stanford, to start a new Clinical Cardiac Surgery Program and Research Lab there. He asked me to go there with him and be his Pump Technician (now called Perfusionist), both Clinically and in the Research Lab. I also became the Supervisor of the Lab. In order to be his Pump Technician(Perfusionist) I had to Operate the Heart-Lung-Machine on a few cases in the Cardiac Clinical Operating Room at Stanford under the tutelage of Dr. Raymond Stofer. Dr. Stofer trained me in the Lab as well as instructing me in all the techniques that I would need clinically. He was Dr. Shumway's Pump Technician(Perfusionist). I was the first Perfusionist that Dr. Stofer trained at Stanford. There were no schools for doing that kind of job in 1963 and 1964. Now the technicians that do that job have the job title of Perfusionist. Later Dr. Stofer started a school of Perfusion at Stanford and sent me a Certificate from that school. There are now about thirty schools at various institutions around the country for training people for that profession. I was lucky to get in on the ground floor of a new profession. I trained several Perfusionists on the job during my tenure as Chief of Perfusion at MCV Hospital in Richmond, VA, where Dr. Lower and I moved in 1965. Dr. Lower, with me as his Perfusionist, did 25 Clinical Open Heart Cases that year at the Palo Alto VA Hospital, from July 1964 to July 1965. In June of 1965 Dr. Lower asked me to move my family to Richmond, VA and be his Perfusionist there at MCV Hospital. We set up a Research Lab there and started doing both Clinical and Research Heart Transplants, as well as all types of Open Heart Surgery. My second daughter, Dominique, was born in Sep...Expand for more