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Many Lives Intertwined
A Memoir
by Hyun Sook Han
with Kari Ruth
introduction by Madonna King
$25.00, ISBN 0-9638472-9-5
252 pages, hardcover
Proceeds from Many Lives Intertwined go to the Young U and Hyun
Sook Han Endowment, to generate resources for services to children as
offered through Children's Home Society & Family Services.
Click here to read some excerpts.
Mrs. Hyun Sook Han was a young girl in Seoul when the
Korean War was raging. As she and her family fled from the advancing enemy
troops, they passed thousands of abandoned children, many of them dead or
dying. She vowed to dedicate her life to helping Korea’s children. This is
the story of how she fulfilled that promise.
Mrs. Han
seems to have lived several lives, as a Korean, as an American, as a wife,
mother, social worker and adoption pioneer. Her life intertwined with so
many others. In this beautiful memoir she tells her story, and it’s a joy.
Hyun Sook Han is now retired from her job as a social worker,
but no less busy as she continues to travel to Asia and Europe on behalf
of adoption issues.
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All
those children crying, though, I could not look into their eyes and
acknowledge such sorrow. Instead, I whispered to them: “I will come back
and help you. Somehow, I will find a way to help you.”
Hyun Sook Han was born in Korea during a time when the Japanese occupied
her country, prior to World War II. She was still only a child when the
Korean War broke out, and she had to flee Seoul with her family, hurrying
south on foot with her baby sister on her back. In the horror of that
experience, passing thousands of abandoned and dead children, she made a
promise that she would come back to them as soon as she could. Somehow,
she would find a way to help.
In
the chaos and poverty of post-war Korea, Hyun Sook Han started on her path
to fulfill that promise. She resisted family pressure to become a lawyer
and politician, and instead began her life long career as a social worker,
with the welfare of children as her highest priority.
In
Many Lives Intertwined, Hyun Sook Han relates the very distinct
lives she has lead, and how they’ve all come together in one amazing
whole. Daughter, student, refugee, wife, emigrant, social worker, mother,
Korean, American, and adoption pioneer. Those who know only one of her
lives will be fascinated to read about the others. Anyone interested in
Korea or international adoption will find her story engrossing.
Her
story moves from her happy childhood with loving parents to the brutality
and turmoil of the Korean War. She tells of her school days, her college
career, and how she met and married the man with whom she would spend her
life. Mrs. Han relates not only the difficult birth of her daughter, but
how she and her husband openly adopted a son at a time when families tried
to keep adoptions secret. We also get wonderful insights into joys and
sorrows of leaving one’s native country for a new one, as she and her
family settled into an American way of life.
Her
stellar social work career began in 1964, after graduating in 1962 from
Ewha University, Korea’s renowned private women’s university. Mrs. Han
worked for 11 years in Korea’s newly-forming child welfare field to
support children and birth parents who needed to consider adoption. She
brought new ideas and new energy, establishing foster care programs and
working to develop in-country adoption. Mrs. Han was also responsible for
a public education effort, and traveled to over 500 factories, speaking on
the subject of birth control with young unwed pregnant women who were
employed in factories.
In
1975, Mrs. Han joined the Children's Home Society of Minnesota staff, and
teamed with other CHSM staff to expand Korean adoption in Minnesota and
provide a wealth of service experiences for families with children of
Korean descent. Mrs. Han was the bridge that allowed CHSM to create
direct working relationships with Korean child welfare agencies, the
Korean government, and other agencies. She has been a guiding light in
work supporting the advancement of adoption and professional knowledge in
Korea’s social work community.
But
more than anything else, Mrs. Han is beloved for all the families she
helped make, finding well over a thousand families who wanted children,
and matching them to children who needed a loving family. She has given
her entire energy, time, and effort for children who need homes, for 40
years of her life, and has touched each of those hearts. |
