Robert and Dorothy DeBolt (placeholder)

The story of the Atwood-DeBolt family is a bit more complex than to simply say “twenty children”. Dorothy and her late husband gave birth to five children and adopted two youngsters from Korea. In the early 1960’s Dorothy was left a widow when Ted Atwood died of cancer. Now a widow with seven children, Dorothy moved to the San Francisco Bay Area and in 1969 took two Vietnamese boys into the family. Tich and Anh had been wounded in the war, were paraplegics brought to this country for medical treatment. Dorothy was now a widow with nine children.

It was shortly after adopting Tich and Anh that she and Bob DeBolt met on a blind date and were married six months later. (Bob says he didn’t know all those children were hers until several months after they were married – - he thought it was a slumber party!). He brought to the family his one daughter by a previous marriage. The family now totaled ten children.

Dorothy and Bob went on to adopt ten more children. Nine of the kids were physically handicapped – or as the DeBolts say, “physically challenged” – blind, paralyzed, abandoned and abused. The adopted children consisted of seven from Vietnam, four from Korea, one from Mexico, one African-American and one Caucasian.

No longer “children”, they range in age from 34 to 54. All are living on their own and supporting themselves.

Ah yes, grandchildren – - twenty-nine and one great grandchild!