My Portable Life
Reluctant Runaway Finds Families for Thousands of Children
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This is an incredible true story. I enjoyed every page. This is the life story of Jean Nelson Erichsen, who (with her husband Heino) was a pioneer in the international adoption movement in the US. Jean not only survived a difficult upbringing and an abusive situation, she triumphed and has helped thousands of children and families. She tells her story in a direct and clear style without blame or bitterness. Despite all the hardships described, the book is anything but depressing. It is inspiring, energizing, and empowering. Laura Kalish, www.goodreads.com/review/show
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About the Book
Sacred Heart, Minnesota, 1934: Born in the Great Depression to a sadly mismatched couple, a child is moved from one small town to another in her family’s quixotic search for affluence. She is neglected, abused, kept penniless in a middle-class family. She dreams of helping children find the stable family she is denied. Forced out of her home at sixteen, she’s a runaway, a child bride, a battered teenage mother. While she observes major events of the twentieth century, she wins her private struggle for independence.
Through romance with a former World War II German soldier during the social revolution of the 1960s, to moving to Texas in the 1980s, Jean Erichsen becomes an innovator in international adoptions and a widely acclaimed and emulated agency director, social worker, and author. On an international journey spanning three decades, she and her husband raise children while traveling abroad and shaping ethical adoption practices for the benefit of thousands of orphans.
About the Author
The arrival in midlife of three infants propelled Jean Erichsen in a new direction. Her first publications were written for children. Later, she used her pioneering adoption experience to create the first book on international adoption. Subsequent versions evolved into How to Adopt Internationally, still considered the bible on the subject. When she and her husband launched Los Niños International Adoption Center (LNI) they paved the way for thousands of North Americans to achieve parenthood. The Erichsens traveled extensively in Latin America, Asia, and Eastern Europe, to visit orphanages and develop adoption programs. The agency earned a national and international reputation for high ethical standards. Jean is considered an expert in the field of international adoption and was often interviewed for national television broadcasts by ABC, CBS, NBC, Cable News Network (CNN), Univision, WorldNet (U.S. Information Service), major magazines, and newspapers. The agency and her books were mentioned in dozens of books on adoption. Erichsen earned a bachelor’s degree in communications/social work at Metropolitan State University, St. Paul, Minnesota; a master’s degree in human development, specializing in foreign adoption sources and procedures at St. Mary’s College, Winona, Minnesota; and certification by the Texas Board of Social Work Examiners. Erichsen was in Holland for the final reading of The Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption. She is a member of the Association of American University Women, the National Association of Social Workers, Great Decisions Foreign Policy Association and member for twenty-five-years of the National Council for Adoption and the Joint Council on International Children’s Services. She and her husband are the parents of three biological and three adopted children who are now married with children of their own. The Erichsens live in The Woodlands, Texas.