Time Travel: resettling Vietnamese refugees in 1977

In October 1977 eleven refugees from Vietnam sheltered at St. Theresa’s Catholic Church in Frederick, Colo., where Elizabeth Dyer and Kathy Santopietro worked with Leonard and Peter Urban. The families resettled in Longmont, Colo. Enjoy these photos from the past courtesy of Kathy Santopietro Weddel!

Vietnam motherland tour 2025: To explore, to experience, to enjoy and to bond!

Our 2025 trip to Vietnam was a special journey, as it marked 50 years since Operation Babylift, the completion of our childcare and adoption program and the end of the Vietnam War. Susan Carol McDonald, with whom I worked at New Haven Nursery in Saigon, and I have escorted groups of Vietnam War Orphans to and through their motherland periodically since 1996.

While 34 adoptees from the U.S., Canada and Germany joined us for the whole tour this year, several more were with us for the Saigon and Mekong Delta days. Two adoptive mothers, 14 spouses, six siblings, eight children, two former volunteers, Ruth Routten and I comprised the group. A few adoptees had been to Vietnam in prior years; four had journeyed with Ruth and me on previous trips.

Their adoption backgrounds were myriad. Seven had been chosen from the orphanages by their adoptive fathers who were working or stationed in Vietnam, with the legal formalities accomplished by Vietnamese attorneys or by our Friends for All Children (FFAC) director, Rosemary Taylor. Others had been cared for and placed with families by Holt International, World Vision and International Rescue Committee, Catholic Relief Services and Friends of Children of Vietnam. A special blessing for me was making this journey with adoptees who had been in our FFAC nurseries.

The Presidio in San Francisco was the site of our meet and greet on March 27. In April 1975 hundreds of Operation Babylift orphans were cared for here by community volunteers and medical staff until flight arrangements could be made to adoptive parents in the U.S., Canada and Europe.

To EXPLORE the adoptees’ historical roots is a primary goal of the journey — at maternity clinics, orphanages and the former sites of the nurseries. Sacred Heart in Danang still has their record book; three of our adoptees found their earliest information in the registry. Searching the baptismal records in Catholic churches associated with the orphanage provides another opportunity.

While visiting orphanages and former nursery sites, we EXPERIENCE the sights, the sounds and the smells in the air and on the streets. We experienced culture. We learned to prepare Vietnamese dishes, took boat trips on the Mekong River, toured the morning floating market, toured brick-making and coconut candy factories, were entertained by local musicians at our Delta Homestay overnight and learned lantern-making in Hoi An.

From Hue to Danang we traveled the Road from the Sea to the Sky. Cultural experiences included visiting a Buddhist Temple, climbing hundreds of steps to several Buddhist shrines and meeting Catholic priests and sisters. We donned traditional tailored Vietnamese tunics to do morning tai chi on the deck of our cruise ship on Halong Bay. We visited historical sites, including the Hue Citadel and temples of the Nguyen Dynasty, as well as the My Lai massacre site and the Hanoi Hilton.

ENJOY, we did: swimming in Halong Bay, walking on the beach, golfing, riding water buffaloes, taking nighttime motorcycle tours through Saigon, traveling roads beside lush rice and corn fields, kayaking and boating … and most of all, we enjoyed each other.

And finally, we BOND: The friendships formed, from crib-mates to soulmates, are the treasured outcome of the journey. After a few days, as we rolled along, would come, “We’re not only friends, we are family.” The shared heritage as orphans of war, days and nights together in Vietnam, create a cherished bond.

Our mission to explore, to experience, to enjoy and to bond: ACCOMPLISHED!