On February 14th, 2025, the Committee on Public Awareness (COPA) offered a storytelling event called “Finding Aid to My Soul: For the Love of Archives.”
This is one of the stories shared during that event.

Before I was Me

I was born in Vinh Long, a rural port [province] in the Mekong Delta in South Vietnam. As an infant, I was brought to Saigon to an orphanage operated by Friends For All Children, an organization based in Boulder, Colorado. On April 3, 1975 after Ed Daly, who was the president of World Airways, chartered an unauthorized flight evacuating orphans from Vietnam. President Ford initiated Operation Babylift to evacuate over 3,000 children, A C-5, a cargo plane was loaded with children, the infants in the troop compartment and the older children military crew, press and volunteers were on the floor in the cargo department.12 minutes after takeoff, the rear cargo door hydraulics failed. Bud Trainor, the pilot, maneuvered the plane to head back towards Saigon. The plane crashed into the rice paddy, bounced over the Saigon River, crash landed on the other side, breaking into pieces. Survivors, including me, I was nine months old at the time, were rescued, stabilized and flown to the US. We arrived in the Presidio in San Francisco, and I grew up on a beautiful farm in Kauai in Hawaii. The Presidio arrival was the first video capture of Operation Babylift, as President Ford greeted the children and 2020 aired the segment. I have no parental birth records. I have no hospital bracelet. I just have a front-page newspaper article and these news clips that we recorded. Over the years, I used Operation Babylift for school reports. I collected books, VHS, tapes of anything we’ve got on TV. There were documentaries, there were magazines, anything I could find. Little did I know that these were going to become the archives of my life. Books were published, published memoirs by adoptees, families of adoptees. There was a Nat Geo documentary, independent films, different websites would pop up, and personal blogs. This was a start that made the story a little more personal. But I felt like the story was always something that was told by others. It was never truly mine.

I have no parental birth records. I have no hospital bracelet.
I just have a front-page newspaper article and these news clips that we recorded.

 In the early 2000s, social media started to connect the adoptees, adding a whole other dimension to the story. But Trainor, who was the pilot of the C-5, a plane that crashed, he told me, “I don’t want this history to disappear when I do.” That was last year. He had started [a] Facebook page in 2010 and it was called the C-5 a galaxy, but Babylift. And on that, people started to share stories. They started to share histories. They identified the place the faces in the different photos, the pilot and others that were in service actually commented on all of the crash photos adding a narrative of their own to these images that we had seen publicly for years. 

There was a passenger manifest of civilians that was released by the Air Force, and it was a list that I had for years since, like high school reports. It was a publicly released list, but all of a sudden that list was no longer just names. It was real. For example, on one of the manifest lists that was the volunteers, it says line 34 and 35 “mom and dad both died in the crash,” and all of a sudden, the death of that loss became real. They became real people, and not just names. 

They became real people, and not just names.

As the 50th anniversary of Operation Babylift approaches–that will be this April 4 this year, ‘25–I wanted to help preserve history. I was talking to Mary Nell Gage, who was a part of a part of Friends For All Children on-site in Vietnam when I was an infant, and she helped facilitate many of the adoptions, including mine, and continues to support us through her work. She lives in Denver, Colorado. The records that we had when she was in Vietnam and others, the records were actually destroyed when all the on-site adoption records were destroyed, when the Operation shut down at the end of the war. The records that were personally held by the director of friends for all children, Rosemary Taylor, were recycled upon her passing. In December, I moved about 33 boxes up three flights of stairs from Mary Nell. And I joked with her, as after we moved all the boxes up, and I said, “Do you think my file’s in there?” And she said, “Somewhere.” I mean, there’s 33 boxes full of files. 

Later, at dinner, she went up and grabbed a stack of files, plopped them on the table, and I reached for the first one, and I opened it up. “Mommy!” Holy shit. It was mine. It was my mother’s handwriting. It was her application to adopt a child. It had home studies. It had the process and checklists. It had a receipt for me. It had letters, all of the pieces of my story before I was me. And then I was given a list of the plane crash survivors by a woman who wrote a book about Operation Babylift and that I had found on Facebook. She emailed me the PDF, and we looked at it together. I went down the list with her, and there it was, Mimosa. That was me. I was on the list. I was there. This was in the basement in Colorado for decades. And finally, this was my story. Those boxes weren’t just records, they’re proof that we existed and that we mattered. Preserving these stories ensures adoptees like me can finally find their truth. That is my love story of my life and archives. 

On February 14th, 2025, the Committee on Public Awareness (COPA) offered a storytelling event called “Finding Aid to My Soul: For the Love of Archives.”
This is one of the stories shared during that event.

The Last of the Thursday Morning Crew

Between the ages of about 11 to 15, I spent every Thursday morning having coffee with my grandpa and his friends. I would wake up early, he’d pick me up, and we’d drive downtown to the local bakery. He’d buy me a giant cinnamon roll, he’d get his coffee, and we’d sit around a table with his friends, where they would spend the next few hours solving the world’s problems or just talking about their week before or the week coming up. 

None of these men understood why this young girl enjoyed spending her Thursday mornings with them. And to be honest, I never really thought much about it. I enjoyed hearing their stories. I enjoyed feeling like a part of the group. It made me feel special. But really, I just liked spending time with my grandpa. Over the years, I heard 1000s of stories, and to be honest, I can’t tell you a single one today, but I did learn about these four old men. 

I enjoyed hearing their stories.

There was Ted, who was a pilot, a telegrapher, a photographer, and he learned how to cut cakes in the Navy, which he brought up every birthday as he passed out these beautifully cut pieces around the table.

There was Tom, who was a less frequent attendee of these meetings, but he was calm and always listening. I know a little less about him. I know he worked for the University, and for some reason, my young mind always equated him to a turtle. Don’t ask me why, but I still think of him as a turtle today.

There was Dick, who was a postman who loved discussing the rural routes on the edge of town and the best way to get from point A to point B. And well into his 70s, was prided himself on the fact that he still had brown hair while everyone else on the table, par me, was gray or going bald. 

And then there was Louis. He was my favorite. He was my grandpa’s best friend. He had served in the army, he had driven [a] truck, and he spent the latter years of his life helping others, most notably the widow of his former employer. 

Eventually, I started public high school and Thursday mornings were no longer my own, but every school break, you would find me at that table with those men, discussing the world and the town and everything in between. And eventually I started college, and a couple years in, I lost the first, Louis. Broke my heart. By the time I had finished grad school, I was the last of the Thursday morning crew left, which is a side-effect of being 60 years junior of your friends, but I think of them often to this day and drink coffee on all of their birthdays. 

I think of them often to this day and drink coffee on all of their birthdays. 

I eventually got a job at my local university archive, and in the following years, I was able to have coffee with each of these men again, at least once, if not a few times. 

The most frequent was Ted, who I initially found in a college yearbook. A photograph with him having a camera around his neck, he had served on the yearbook staff. This was before World War Two, when he left to serve, and he never returned to the university to get his degree. But he did return to town and became the photographer, and I often found [him] developing envelopes and local collections I was processing. 

And then there was Tom, who I had found in some staff and faculty photographs from the 60s, as I rehoused them. Turns out he had been a counselor at the university, which contradicted my memory of him being an AG professor, which goes to show that I might not have always been paying the closest attention on Thursday mornings.

There was Dick, who I didn’t necessarily find in the archive, though I’m sure he’s there somewhere. But every time I needed to move exhibit cases from one part of campus to another, we used his son’s moving company, and every time I saw the truck, I smiled. 

And then there was Louis. Again I didn’t find him exactly, but I did find his parents, who had participated in an oral history project in the 70s, discussing their migration from Italy to the rural area and their experiences there raising their family. I had no idea he was the son of Italian immigrants, but it made sense. 

Through my time in the archives. Over those years, I got to have coffee at least once with each of these men which bring brought joy to my heart and to this day, every time, every morning, I drive to work, and I see in a restaurant window backlit a group of old men sitting around a table drinking coffee, and it’s all my heart’s desire to pull over and see if I can join and maybe help them solve some of the world’s problems.