While he was still an invalid, my mother also became ill and kept her bed for the better part of two years.

When she got up, it was only to lapse again.

Some of us children also fell ill, so that at one period the house was a hospital.

And while my parents were incapacitated, the business was ruined through bad management, until a day came when there was not enough money in the cash drawer to pay the doctor's bills.
For some years after they got upon their feet again, my parents struggled to regain their place in the business world, but failed to do so.

My father had another period of experimenting with this or that business, like his earlier experience.