Donor Baby’s Parents Lost Earlier Child in Drowning

WYOMING, Mich. — The parents of the boy whose heart beat today in the chest of Baby Jesse in California lost another child three years ago when they found their 8-month-old son dead after he was left unattended in a bathtub.

“It’s just hard to accept why I had to lose two babies. It’s hard to hang onto faith,” said Deborah Walters, the mother of the boy whose heart was transplanted to the California child Tuesday at Loma Linda University Medical Center.

Walters, 33, and Frank Clemenshaw Jr., 22, spoke in an interview with the Grand Rapids Press a few hours after saying a final goodby to their brain-dead son, Frank IV, and meeting with reporters to tell them of their decision.

Later, the couple recalled the night of Aug. 30, 1983.

They said they had left their 8-month-old son, Frank III, unattended in a bathroom sitting in a plastic toy equipped with a sling seat. A label on the toy warned, “Do not leave child unattended.”

They ran to the bathroom after being alerted by 9-year-old Heather, a daughter from Walters’ previous marriage, who found her little brother face down in the bathtub of the mobile home in Cutlerville, a Grand Rapids suburb.

Clemenshaw and paramedics tried to revive the boy with mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, but failed.

“They were just devastated,” Kent County Sheriff’s Detective John Orange recalled Tuesday. Orange, who investigated the case, said no charges were filed.

Between the births of their two sons, Walters and Clemenshaw also had a daughter, Tanya, now 2.

(Baby Jesse gets heart, Page 3.)