Verne Clifford Shaver, our youngest, liveliest and apparently the most enthusiastically ambitious, was born in Wilmerding, where he, like the other children, attended the public schools in that borough and when the family moved to Wilkinsburg in the Spring of 1940, he was ready for High School.

Drug stores, for some reason, seemed an attraction for our children and Verne became an employee in the pharmacy of Herbert Felser, in Wilkinsburg, working during his spare time after school hours. Having a
likeable disposition, polite, accommodating and alert to the comforts of the patrons of the store, he won the commendation of his employer and the patrons, many of them later becoming his staunch friends.

The Second World War was progressing. Several of his companions having enlisted in the service, Verne's patriotism was enflamed to such an extent that he worried his parents for permission to "join up.” Consent was finally granted reluctantly, and Verne enlisted in the Navy. He was sent to Camp Bennington, Maryland Training Center, where he selected Pharmacist Mate for his service in the conflict.

Finishing his training in San Diego, California, he was stationed in the Naval hospital at that place for the period of the war. It was at this place, coming in contact with medical officials of distinction, that his ambition was focused on the medical profession as a career. He was encouraged by these medical men, many of them graduates of Harvard College, where they insisted he should attend.

But Verne hadn't finished his High school education before enlisting. Having resolved to become a physician, upon returning home he doffed his uniform and entered Westinghouse High School, Pittsburgh, from which he graduated in 1947. In the Fall of that same year he enrolled in the Premedical Course at the University of Pittsburgh Medical School.
Intensely studious and with a retentive mind, he finished the four year premedical course of study in three years, graduating in 1950 as an honor student. Re-entering the University as a medical student, he again won high honors and graduated in 1954. As a student of the University he won membership in two fraternities. Phi Beta Pi, elected November 6, 1952, and Alpha Omega Alpha, elected in 1953.

Following a year as an intern at Mercy Hospital, Pittsburgh, he prepared for specializing in the practice of Medicine. Three years as a resident physician in a hospital is the legal requirement for such training. Two of these three years Verne served as a resident physician at the Charity Hospital in New Orleans, Louisiana, considered one of the finest equipped hospitals in the country. The third year of his residency was completed at Mercy Hospital, in Pittsburgh, in July, 1958.

While serving at Charity Hospital, New Orleans, he met and wooed Miss Constance Maurin, a resident of that city and a graduate nurse specializing in Psychiatrics at the same Hospital. They were married at Second Presbyterian Church August 31, 1957. On July 11, 1958, Verne Clifford Shaver Junior was born to bless their home. [Subsequent to Verne Junior’s birth, and after Pop’s death, four more children were born to Verne and Connie: Valerie Lynn, Celia Desirée, Brian Maurin and Steven Duane Shaver.]

Record of WWII service