Former New Ulm residents, Mr. and Mrs. David Ruthenbeck of Mankato are in Chicago today to meet Joel, the 6-year-old Vietnamese orphan they had been expecting “possibly in July.”

“I received a call about noon today,”said Ruthenbeck Friday night, “telling us we can pick up our boy in Chicago Sunday.”

The call from Holt Children’s Agency came only a couple hours after Ruthenbeck had told the Journa1 of the quickening pace during the past few days in their dealings with the agency in Eugene, Ore.

RUTHENBECK, formerly in the counseling department at New Ulm High School, and his wife, Lori, who had been a social worker in the Brown County Welfare Department, moved to Mankato about seven years ago when Ruthenbeck accepted a position at Mankato State College.

The Ruthenbeck family, including their son, Paul, 10, left Saturday by car for Chicago.

They were told the plane with Joel aboard was expected to arrive in Seattle, Wash., at 11 p.m. Saturday and they would be informed later of his exact arrival time in Chicago.

Saturday described a scene of about 400 orphans under the care of Holt’s super-vision, lined up ready to leave for the United States.

The report coincides with Ruthenbeck’s information in which he was told Holt was evacuating all its children Saturday on chartered planes.

A NEW ULM FAMILY awaiting final clearance on the adoption of a Vietnamese child finally got through to Holt headquarters in Oregon Saturday afternoon and were told that the agency is not doing anything differently and are “not processing things any faster.”

The Gerald Amons have had a 22-month-old Korean child, Chad, since November 1973,and in a new adoption application through Holt they had specified that they preferred a Vietnamese child this time.

Mrs. Amon said one reason she wanted to get in touch with Holt was to let them know that all their home studies have now been completed, hoping that this might speed things up in their case.

“This is the story of adoption,” said Mrs. Amon, “just sitting and waiting.”

“People who haven’t gone through a foreign adoption don’t realize all the red tape,”said Mrs. Amon. She added that the red tape “is good in a way because an adoption of this type takes a lot of thought and it is nothing that should be done emotionally and on impulse.”

New Ulm Daily Journal

April 6, 1975