"I’d Like to Share the Dream I Accomplished in America with My Family.”

A Korean woman, who is a high-ranking official in the US government, is searching for her family, from which she was separated 40 years ago, in Korea.

Ea-Soon Johnson (46, Korean name; Guk, Ea-Soon), who works as a consulting accountant (same rank as an assistant commissioner in Korea) at the Accounting Department of the US Treasury Department, is the one.

Ms. Ea-Soon lost her family while she was concentrating into a shaman rite when she went to a local market in Ssangmoon-Dong, Dobong-Gu, Seoul with her two brothers in 1961, when she was 5 years old.

The police brought her to the International Nursery Home in Euijungbu City, Gyunggi-Do, and when the nursery home closed after 3 years, she was moved to the Esther Nursery Home in Doksan-Dong, Geumchun-Gu, Seoul.

Ms. Ea-Soon had to move out of the nursery home when she turned to 18 after graduated from a middle school; however, she could stay at the nursery home and teach typewriting to the kids for 4 years with a special permit from the principle and his wife.

She dreamed about marrying a man she was dating when she was 20 years old; however, they had to break up because the man’s parents opposed to their marriage after knowing that she was brought up at a nursery home.

The one who got close to the disappointing Ea-Soon was her husband Rick Johnson (55), who was serving as a Major at the US 8th Army in Yongsan, Seoul at that time.

Mr. Johnson, who visited the nursery home in Christmas times and holidays, had a good emotion toward her, who greeted him with stammering English every time he came.

“I reproached my parents, who did not search for me, and it was very difficult stay in Korea where I was discriminated with only reason that I was an orphan. At that time, my husband came to me with a warm heart.”

She moved to America with her husband in 1977, but life in America was not that easy. With her husband’s salary as a Major, it was even difficult to send alimony to his divorced ex-wife.

She finished high school through a correspondence course while going to an English program. The first job she got after acquiring a medical assistant license in 1983 was a blood-gathering office. Mostly homeless people sold their blood there, so it was difficult to work here, and she used to worry about getting AIDS.

He moved to an army hospital in Virginia in 1985, and worked also to calculate patients’ hospital expenses, and she was getting into accounting while doing that.

She studied really hard so she got scholarships for two years while majoring in accounting at a community college at night, and she was specially hired as a 5th grade accounting public worker by the same hospital in 1987.

She had 23 workers to manage after few years of hard working; however, the orders of this little women from Asia were not carried away well.

“I ordered the employees, who neglected me because I had bad accent, in writing.”

She was transferred to the Treasury Department in 1998 and move up to this position with her unique sincerity. Her husband went into the first reserve in the same year, and he is working at the fighter plane making Lockheed Martin Group affiliated company as a vice president.

She is living in a suburb of Washington DC with her husband and a daughter, and she was beginning to miss her family after hearing the news that the principle Chon, Yu-Bong of the Esther Nursery Home, who took care of her like his own daughter, died in 1999.

“Frankly speaking, I reproached them a lot, but I miss them. If they live a difficult life, I want to help them.”

She remembers that her father died, she does not remember her mother’s name; however, she remembers her two brothers as ‘Jin-Gil’ and ‘Jin-Hae.’

Her story has been known among public since she showed her will to find her family to the ‘Gathering of People Who Are Looking for Separated Family’ (Chairman, Jung, Gun-Hwa, 02-2246-2274). She is planning to come to Korea on the 4th of next month.

Dong-Yong Min mindy@donga.com