The Holt Vault

By Kathye Schied, Post Adoption Services Coordinator

The Holt vault is a sacred place. In a basement room filled with boxes of files thereexist revealing documents and photographs that relate the heritage and first moments oflife for many Holt adoptees. For years, and even decades, adoptees may not have hadaccess to this information. The vault often contains vital pieces to the puzzle of their pastand can answer questions about where they came from, their culture, and the people whogave them life.

Adoptees contact us every day wondering if we have information about their begin-nings. They say, “I know nothing about myself. What information do you have?” Somebelieve the files were destroyed or that they never even existed.

One day an adoptee called and asked us to search for any pictures we might have ofher at a very young age. After a trip to the vault, I returned the call to tell the adopteethat we did have a picture and would be glad to send it to her. “Was I cute?” she askedright away. “You were beautiful,” I answered easily. On the other end of the phone shebegan to cry and said, “You know, I have never seen a picture of myself before I wasadopted. Thank you. Thank you. This means so much to me.”

I always feel a sense of relief when I locate the file of an adoptee. Sometimes the filecontains a single piece of paper or a small black and white picture, but this one piece ofpaper may be the only testament to this specific time in their life. Each one of the files isa person. The files do not eat or breathe, of course, but they are the earliest informationthat exists for many of these adoptees.

There are 30,000–35,000 files in the Holt vault. The files are kept permanently in thetemperature-controlled, fire-protected, locked vault, with access limited to only a few peo-ple. Occasionally a file cannot be found. When this happens a sense of sadness, loss,and even anger washes over me. I feel we have lost the early life of one of our adoptees.If the folder has not been misfiled somewhere, then it may not exist at all, and there is noway of retrieving this information.

After returning from the vault one day, there was a voice mail message for me from anadult adoptee. When I returned his call he said, “Tell me, what is the off-site vault? Iwas told that is where you were this afternoon when I called.” I informed him that the off-site vault was the place where all of our adult adoptees files are stored. He had manyquestions: “Is my file there? How many files are there? How far do they go back?” As Ibegan to answer him, I became very protective of the files. I told him how important thefiles are to me, and that they are someone’s life. They need to be taken care of, I toldhim, and handled just as you would handle a child. To my surprise he thanked me for tak-ing care of and protecting the files. “I am a historian,” he said. “I know what you are say-ing and feeling. I feel that also. Thank you for doing this.”

The pictures of all the children in the files come alive as they each have a unique storyand a distinct face. There are faces in all shapes, sizes, and colors. They are happy, sad,lost, and lonely faces of children that are now adults. The history and legacy of Holtexists in these faces and files that line the basement walls. They must be protected andhandled with love and compassion.

Kathye Schied wasthe Social Servicesassistant for PostAdoption Services.Over the years shehad contact withmore adult adopteesand their files thananyone else in theagency. Kathye leftHolt at the end of2003, but herimportant work withthe vault andadoptee’s recordswill last generations.