75-09-A1
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The Amazing DeBolts
TranscriptA remarkable family of 19 has a new twist on adoption. I'll be right back. To look at Dorothy DeBolt an attractive, slim, well-dressed Piedmont, California woman, you'd never expect her to be the mother of 19 children but she is. That's right, she and her husband Bob have 19 children, 13 of whom are adopted or under their legal guardianship. It all began when Dorothy, as a young widow, moved her family of seven including two adopted Korean boys from the California Gold Rush country to the San Francisco Bay area. Active musically they performed for local groups and on national television. Five years ago Dorothy and Bob DeBolt were married, his eleven-year-old daughter joined the family. Dorothy began speaking to women's groups about the special joys of adoption and the family's interest moved more and more toward what they call, "special kids," those children which adoption agencies once considered unadoptable. These are the kids with physical handicaps many from birth, Those from racially mixed marriages and those who've been battered by parents. Today if you walk into the DeBolt home you'll find everything tidy and outside a neatly trimmed garden including a large vegetable plot. The boys and girls, all ages, races and with a variety of physical handicaps, pitch in to help each other and to share family chores. Overall the sense of warmth love and mutual respect is tangible. Newest arrivals to the DeBolt family are two girls from a Saigon orphanage, one of whom was in that C-5 evacuation air crash. The other girl was on one of the last planes out of Vietnam. About her brood and all the special kids Dorothy DeBolt says the child who was handicapped be it mentally or physically is possessed of a certain spark, perhaps a compensating factor put there by God. Whatever it may be, if we the so-called normal people will nourish that spark, we'll discover that not only the lives of the children but our own are immeasurably enriched. As if rearing this big diverse and very happy family wasn't enough, the energetic DeBolts have created a foundation Aid to Adoption of Special Kids which they call A.A.S.K. A.A.S.K. isn't an adoption agency instead it promotes the adoption of such children and it works to change the conventional attitudes which still prevail among many adoption workers that these children are unadoptable. The foundation also underwrites special costs for adoptive parents and special kids, such as modification of the home for special equipment, therapy, attorneys, adoption fees, and so forth. "There's no lack of youngsters to be adopted." says Mrs DeBolt. In 1970, the last year for which statistics are available, there were 60,000 adoptable children in the United States, many in the special kids category, physically handicapped, older children and those from racial minorities. At a time when some people think you should be able to terminate a pregnancy with the ease with which tonsils are removed and a time when some public officials have forgotten the words on the base of the Statue of Liberty. When it comes to opening our land to Southeast Asian refugees, the remarkable DeBolts stand as a shining example of that spirit of compassion and generosity which has marked America for generations. This is Ronald Reagan. Thanks for listening. |
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