Huntsmans 'expecting' a child from India

By Lisa Riley Roche
Deseret Morning News

Published: Thursday, Dec. 29, 2005 11:29 p.m. MST

0 comments

E-MAIL | PRINT | FONT +- 

There may be a new member of Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr.'s family in 2006 — the governor and his wife are in the process of adopting another child, this time from India.

The newest member of Utah's first family will have six siblings, including a 6-year-old sister from China. In 1999, the Huntsmans adopted Gracie Mei, who had been abandoned in a Chinese vegetable market.

"The Huntsman family has long been believers in the joy of life that adoption can provide. Ever since the adoption of their daughter, Gracie, they have considered the possibility of another international adoption," the governor's spokesman, Mike Mower, said Thursday.

Mower declined to provide further details, adding only that "as of now, there is nothing to announce." However, the Deseret Morning News has learned the Huntsmans are in the process of adopting a child from India.

Their hope reportedly is that the as-yet-unidentified child will be able to join the family in the new year. However, because they are still early in the adoption process, it is not known how long it will take for them to be matched with a child.

The Huntsmans, who returned to Utah Thursday from a family vacation in San Francisco, have not shared their plans with many people — even some members of their own families were not aware of what they were doing.

It is not known why they chose to adopt from India this time, although they reportedly have friends in that country. Huntsman has been a U.S. ambassador to Singapore and a U.S. trade representative to Asia and Africa.

He served a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Taiwan and speaks fluent Mandarin. Both Huntsman and his wife, Mary Kaye, talked for years about adopting an Asian child before Gracie Mei became part of their family.

Mary Kaye Huntsman has told the story of how she became involved with helping children in a Taiwanese orphanage while the family was living overseas. She has said she first brought up the idea of adoption while pregnant with her third child.

But it took a dozen years for Huntsman to decide the time was right. The couple reportedly picked out the name for their Chinese daughter even before they began the adoption procedure.

The Huntsmans' two oldest daughters, Mary Anne and Abby, both left home this year to attend school in the East. Still living in the Governor's Mansion are two teenage boys, a teenage daughter and Gracie Mei.

It has been a life-changing experience for the governor to see his oldest children living so far away, his former chief of staff, Jason Chaffetz, said in a recent interview about Huntsman's first year in office.

Chaffetz said it has been important for the governor to be able to spend more time with his wife and children than he was able to when he worked as a trade representative. Then, Huntsman was often away 250 nights a year.

The governor himself said earlier this month that keeping his family together is his proudest accomplishment since taking office in January. "You've got to keep your family together first and foremost," Huntsman said.

"If you fail there, you fail miserably professionally. My family is happy, the happiest they've very been, which I think is the sign of a successful job."