UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon presents his 99-year-old “American Mom” Libba Patterson with an engraved silver platter before lunch at her home Thursday, Aug. 11, 2016, in Novato, California.
NOVATO, California — UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon embraced the 99-year-old woman he calls his “American Mom” Thursday on a nostalgic visit to her home, where as a high school student from war-ravaged South Korea he spent his first days in the United States — experiencing culture shock at the country’s riches.
Libba Patterson hugged the UN chief back and later had tears in her eyes when she spoke about how 18-year-old “Ki-moon” became her fourth child and part of her family during his eight-day visit in 1962.
“He’s still my kid,” she said in an interview with The Associated Press, her voice breaking. “He was just … like our own, and to me, today, underneath all the glory and names and what have you that he’s achieved, he’s still Ki-moon, our son.”
Ban responded saying, “Yes, I’m still her kid and she’s still my American mom.”
“I have two moms, one in Korea and one here,” he said. “More than half a century I’ve been keeping contact. … She’s still very alert, good memory and I’m very happy.”
Ban, whose family was forced to flee their home during the Korean War, reflected on how he got to the United States and the crucial role the month-long visit had in shaping his life.
Both the Red Cross and the United Nations were instrumental in helping all Koreans during the war, he said, so in high school he participated in many Red Cross activities. In his senior year, he entered a Red Cross English essay competition to win a place in its program for international students to visit America — and he won.
Libba Patterson, whose official first names are Mary Elizabeth, worked for the American Red Cross at nearby Hamilton Air Force Base and had a 17-year-old son Michael — close to Ban’s age — so that’s how the family was chosen to host him.
Ban said everything in the US was new and shocking for a “very young, poor country boy from Korea.” He was dazzled by the beauty of nearby San Francisco — the first American city he saw — and shocked at the modern living conditions of Americans compared with those at home.
America seemed “a sort of paradise,” Ban said.
The 120 students from about 40 countries who came to the US under Red Cross auspices spent their final week in Washington.