Customer Reviews

My Portable Life: Reluctant Runaway Finds Families for Thousands of Children

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Fascinating story of the author's journey from growing up with many hardships in Minnesota to settling with her multicultural family in south Texas. Jean Nelson Erichsen writes with sensitivity, compassion, and gentle humor. I found it very compelling the way she wove the story of her current husband's past into her story of overcoming many challenges while working toward her goals.

In addition to the appeal for the adult reader, the memoir is an uplifting read for teenagers who find themselves in challenging family situations. Readers of all ages will be inspired by the author's triumph over many hurdles to achieve her lifelong dream of helping people build families through adoption.

Jean Nelson Erichsen tells a heartwarming story of how she and her husband Heino raised six children and successfully directed a world-renowned adoption agency for over 25 years.

Readers will be moved by the author's resilient spirit and her accomplishment of touching the lives of thousands of families.

In many ways the memoir reminded me of The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls. This memoir will stay with you for a long time after you've finished reading it.

This is a must read story about survival, diversity, family dynamics, international relations and true grit. The book starts with the author, Jean Erichsen, sharing her genealogy as a backdrop to her personal story. From the loneliness in the struggle with her birth family and first marriage to the struggle in creating a world-class adoption agency, Jean shows her grit in being successful with any hand she is dealt. She survives unimaginable, personal challenges and turns that around by being the voice for families wanting to adopt. Her struggles as a youth gave her insight and sensitivity to the needs of infants and children when she visited adoption agencies in other parts of the world. She and her husband, Heino, create a successful diverse family to be proud of. This is a mesmerizing book about the life of the author, Jean Erichsen.

I just finished the book and loved it. Jean Erichsen is a master at writing a novel that grips you from the first page. I am amazed at her conviction to overcome her childhood abuse and turn those experiences into something that reaches far beyond herself. Her description of her Swedish upbringing in the Lutheran church reminded me of my upbringing in a small, Swedish Nebraska town. Her ability to overcome poverty, go back to school and form the first non-profit adoption agency in the US is quite impressive. Read this book. It is definitely a page turner!

I found "My Portable Life" compelling and dramatic. Jean Nelson-Erichsen brings the frigid Midwest to life with brilliant details, intimate recollections and vivid stories. I was so engrossed I read it in one sitting. Thank heavens she did not reap what was sown. From her cardboard box she could have pulled out rocks -- instead she produced rainbows. Jean is an inspiration to all those who think their lives are doomed by a dismal upbringing. Her example shows that we can choose to live our dreams rather than our nightmares.

With Jean Nelson Erichsen's riveting memoir of a painful childhood in the hands of irresponsible parents, she joins the sisterhood of Mary Karr, Jennifer Lauck and Jeannette Walls, to name a few of the women who have written so poignantly about the deprivation of their early lives. Although she was reluctantly dragged from house to house and town to town with all her belongings in a single cardboard box, I experienced no reluctance in following her simultaneously heartwarming and heartbreaking journey. Her prose is as delicate as the intricate tracery she describes on the frosted windowpane of the Minnesota home where she was born.

Unlike other members of the memoirists' sisterhood, she overcame her emotionally battered, economically deprived early years to help thousands of abandoned or neglected children find loving homes with adoptive families. Part of her salvation was her good fortune in meeting a former World War II German soldier who, like the current Pope, had been forced to join The Hitler Youth. He ended up a prisoner of war in Texas. Jean and Heino Erichsen's shattered childhoods inspired them to become pioneers of international adoption.

While her book is a window into her private past, it is also a revealing portrait of small town and rural America in the middle third of the Twentieth Century.

I must tell readers at the start that I know Jean personally both as a neighbor and a friend. Writing here will only show in part why you should read this book but also what a fine person she is -- in warmth and intellect. I put off reading my copy for weeks partly because I was also reading The Reluctant Warrior about her POW husband, Heino. When I started reading, her craft as a wordsmith caught my full attention long before I was fully into her narrative. I had some pre-knowledge of her life but never fully understood to saga of her childhood and how it carved out the path of her life. She presents a powerful almost unimaginable life story of a modern heroine. FIND WORTHY YOUNGSTERS AND SEND THEM A COPIES.

She is not only real, but is a wonderful person.

Powerful,inspirational,heart wrenching. A must read for all who have experienced obstacles in their life. This story illustrates that it is possible to convert negative experiences into positive life changing actions. I felt inspired and uplifted when I read about Jean's determination to use her life challenges to help thousands of families. I am proud to say that my family is included into her legacy.

I am eager to read this book about a friend who helped our family and thousands of others with international adoption. She is a lovely and talented woman, with an enormous heart.