[2] In 1954, Bertha, a nurse, and her husband, a farmer, and lumberjack, went to a high school auditorium in Eugene, Oregon, to watch a film about children in Amerasian South Korean orphanages.
Federal law at the time didn't allow any family to adopt more than two foreign born children.
[2] In 1955, Congress passed the Bill for Relief of Certain War Orphans, specifically so that the Holt family could adopt eight children.
[4] She worked to improve conditions at the IlSan Center in Korea where the Holts built an orphanage and she lobbied other countries to set up adoption programs.
She had three sisters, Beulah Stronczek, Katherine Stanger and Grace Fisher; a brother, William L. Holt; 19 grandchildren, and 12 great-grandchildren at the time of her death.