With all the news articles out on children going over the border and into the United States, I found an interesting article on a former Marcus girl, Luci (Louise) Ferrin. The article takes us back to the year 1984. Five year old twins from El Salvador were adopted by Luci.
It’s a world and a war away from El Salvador, but the Sibley community of Dutch hog farmers and white clapboard houses is what destiny gave Jered and Jonah Ferrin for Christmas of 1983.
The five year old twins are still a curiosity in the conservative, church going town of 3,750 people. They are the only Latin’s in Sibley―the newly adopted children of 32 year-old school teacher, Luci Ferrin, daughter of Clifford and Margaret Ferrin of Marcus.
So far, the boys’ English is pretty much limited to “hi,” “peckle” (pickle) and “chews” (shoes). They sing almost incomprehensible versions of “Jingle Bells” and
“Yankee Doodle.”
On November 1, 1983, the day they got to Sibley, the boys showed immaculate manners, learned their new prayers at dinner and bedtime and went to bed without a protest. They stuffed socks inside the tips of their shoes and put them by the bed.
“They’re trying to be perfect, just perfect, so that they’re pleasing their new parent,” said Jean Erichsen, founder of a Texas adoption agency that matched the boys with Luci. “They so desperately want to be accepted, to have a family, to be able to stay.”
The two young El Salvadorans were abandoned 10 months ago by their mother an unmarried washer-woman who often grabbed her eight children by their throats and shook them, according to Erichsen. (One of the boys said he remembered his mother trying to drown him in a bucket of water.) They lacked affection and good nutrition, but they were luckier than thousands of other Salvadoran children who, as victims of political wars, ended up in refugee camps.
Jered and Jonah were placed in a foster home in the capital city of San Salvador in February (1983). They waited for someone to adopt them. That someone was Miss Ferrin, the music teacher at Sibley Junior High and the daughter of a hog and soybean farmer. Now she’s a parent to two kids she hardly ever understands.
“There are sometimes, you know when I take the boys to a restaurant or a grocery store, and they get off on their Spanish tangent, and I tell them to be quiet,” she said. “And then I wonder why I said that. It’s not like they’re embarrassing me, but it is weird to hear it up there, in Sibley.”
Mucho snow. Mucho frio. A lot of snow. Real cold. The boys think Iowa is darned icy. (After the icy snows we have had recently, they are right!)
“The first time it snowed, it was coming down, and they were trying to block it with their hands.” Lucy picked up a handful and said, “Habla Espanol meaning, what is this in Spanish? They just shrugged their shoulders.”
They arrived at the foster home in San Salvador dressed in rags, adoption records show. Now they wear long underwear and parkas and mittens and double socks and wear as well, snow jackets. They have Sibley High School pompon hats, and identical “Smurf” snow shovels!
By all accounts, they are two of the cheeriest children in Sibley. They are delighted by every new thing they see, every stranger they meet.
They balled up in giggles the first time they saw a garage door go up and down. And, they shrieked when their mother played their voices back on a tape recorder.
Jell-O intrigues them. They put mustard on everything, and American Bandstand has prompted Jonah to begin strutting his stuff around the house.
The boys have some habits that Miss Ferrin believes developed from an upbringing where there was little money but a lot of discipline. They hide all presents in little nooks around the house, or down their pants legs. Or, they demand that their mother re-wrap them. The oddest thing Miss Ferrin has seen is the ritual of the midnight chores.
“I got up one morning early before the boys woke up, and went into their room and was surprised to see them sleeping on top of fully made beds. Sometime during the night, they had both gotten up, made their beds and then crawled on top of the covers to go back to sleep. I guess by making the beds in the middle of the night, they thought they’d have less to do in the morning.”
The boys were so enchanted at first by their big, foam snow boots, that they refused to take them off in the house until they went to bed.
And, when platters of food were put on the table, the twins would not stop eating until everything was gone. “They acted like it was the last time they were going to ever get a meal. It was a month before they learned to say, “enough, I’m full!”
They had distended stomachs when they arrived in Sibley. They had eaten too many starches, had never been given milk. The first time Luci put beans and hot dogs on the dinner table, they moaned, “No Frijoles.” The swelling soon disappeared.
The twins will throw an occasional temper tantrum, generally because one boy gets something the other doesn’t. The dispute escalates when their mother can’t understand their Spanish!
“The most frustrating thing for me is not being able to understand them,” said Miss Ferrin. “Sometimes I feel like it’s me against them.”
Sibley is a family-oriented place, with few single men. Willing to face the possibility of being permanently single, Miss Ferrin could not bear to think of herself as childless.
“I felt I had something to offer children, she said. “And once I got started in this, I knew it was God’s plan for me. Everything went so quickly and easily.”
She felt certain that an American child was out. Waiting lists were three to five years long, and by then she was told she would be too old to adopt. Plus, she was single and making only $15,400 a year. Adoption agencies say her assumptions were correct.
In 1969, there were only 62 U.S. initiated adoptions from Latin American countries. In 1983 there were more than 1,300 according to the U.S. Bureau of Consular Affairs.
Miss Ferrin applied with an agency in Des Moines in March (1983). On May 31, the phone rang. The Los Ninos agency in Austin was looking for someone who could immediately adopt twin brothers. Although she hesitated for a moment at the thought of twins, she feared that she might not be called again if she said no. So she said “Yes!”
The agency estimated it would cost $3,000 to transport the boys and do the legal paper work. It cost her $7,200 half of which she had to borrow from her bank, her insurance policy, and her parents.
Now that the boys are here, buying two of everything isn’t easy. Miss Ferrin’s biggest worry is how she’s going to afford her new responsibility.
But considering their need and hers, she doesn’t see how she can’t.
(I am trying to find more out about the lives of these twins. By this time, they would be over 40 years old. Where did the adoption of them, do to their lives? Legal channels got them across the border, but with a costly price.
I got in touch with Luci Ferrin in April of 2021 and found out more information. Her letter to me is as follows:
I adopted the boys from El Salvador of 1983. They became U.S. citizens in 1986, when they were 8. I had to stand for them and take the Pledge at a Citizenship Ceremony in Sioux City. My mom was along to the ceremony with us. After the swearing-in was finished, a group sang “God Bless America”. From behind me I could hear someone joust sobbing their eyes out. I turned and found my mom crying and holding a handkerchief over her mouth trying to cover up her sobs. It was a very moving experience. The citizenship ceremony is really a very memorable ceremony. If you have not witnessed one, you should. It really makes you stop and think how lucky we are to be born in the United States of America. There were about 20 people there who got their citizenship that day. Most of them were adults who had to pass a written test. When I was told some of the questions, I wasn’t sure that I could pass it. Please do NOT take your citizenship for granted.
After being in the States for 3 years, I officially was able to adopt the boys in the State of Iowa. That was held at the courthouse in Sibley. The attorney asked the judge to use his gavel in the pronouncement. When asked what happened to them on that day, they answered “We got Hammered.” We laughed about that for a long time!
In school they participated in wrestling and football, band and choir. They graduated from Sibley-Ocheyedan High School in 1997. Midway through their Junior year in HS, Jonah went to the National Guard and took classes at NCC in Sheldon. He transferred to Iowa State and just prior to his student teaching, his Unit was called to Kuwait in 2004. Jonah’s Guard unit spent 1 year in Kuwait. When he returned, he finished his teaching degree and graduated from Iowa State in 2006.
Jered enlisted in the Marine Corp and took his basic training midway through his Senior year. Jered got out of the Marine Corp just prior to Desert Storm. Jered settled in Reno, NV with a Marine buddy. When Jonah got back from Kuwait he joined Jered in Reno. As they say, “Twins are joined at the hips!”
Jonah met and married a nice young lady from the Philippines and they have 2 daughters. Maria is 13 and Alia is 10. Jonah now teaches first grade at a Christian Academy in Reno and also works part-time for a security company providing security at Sports events, weddings, business grand openings and other events that need security.
Jered also works for the same security company and installs surveillance equipment and updates to software. Jered was married for 3 years and then got divorced. He has halftime custody of his daughter, Ellieanna, who is now 6.
They rarely come back to the Sibley area and since my parents have both passed, they have no grandparents to come back to Marcus to see. Both boys are on facebook. Jonah is pretty easy going and laughs a lot. Jered is more serious but does NOT have his mother or brother fooled at all!. The boys were 5 when I brought them home to Sibley. They are not 42. I can hardly believe it has been that long. Seems like just yesterday!
Good to hear from you. Contact me if you have any questions. Luci