Gabrielle Minh
Finding Freedom in America Through a
Newburyport Connection
(Part II of a Two-Part Installment)
By Kathleen Downey
Part I recalled Gabrielle Minh’s visits to her husband in a communist reeducation camp.
Gabrielle Minh with her dog, Rita
Gabrielle Minh’s escape from Vietnam had originally been scheduled to occur prior to her husband’s capture and stern sentence to a communist reeducation camp. But that escape was foiled by geography, bad timing, and gunfire. The plan had been for her cousin, a helicopter pilot, to lift Minh and her family to safety and fly them to the island of Guam. But her husband Dan had been delayed in Saigon—before the city fell to the North Vietnamese. Minh, aware of the communist encroachment and of her husband’s precarious position as a South Vietnamese officer, would not leave her country without him. “The helicopter came under gunfire as it attempted to land on the roof of our building,” Minh recalls. “My cousin was force to leave without picking up any passengers.”
As the parents of three young boys, the Minhs wanted to raise their children in America where they would be free. Minh’s cousin, the helicopter pilot, had by now escaped Vietnam and was living in Texas. Minh contacted him. He asked her, “Do you know any Americans who might sponsor you?” As it happens, Minh did know one American—but she hadn’t spoken with this man in 18 years. She wasn’t sure where to find him—if he was even living in America—or if he would remember her.
Minh was a student when she met Father John F. Leonard, a U.S. Air Force chaplain stationed in South Vietnam. Father Leonard taught English at an orphanage in Minh’s village of Can Tho. But the classroom was open to all local children, and Minh was one of Father Leonard’s brightest pupils. She would often accompany the priest when he delivered medical supplies and food provisions to villagers, translating for him so that the Vietnamese people would not be afraid.
However, Father Leonard was stationed in Can Tho for only one year. His travels would take him through Europe before ultimately bringing him back to America. But he remembered Minh, and over the years that followed he mailed her small donations. Though she never cashed these checks—Minh explains that the travel and logistics necessary to complete such transactions was too prohibitive—their value ended up being far greater than their monetary worth. When her cousin asked if she knew any Americans, Minh thought of Father Leonard. She remembered his checks, which she had kept as mementos. The checks had been drawn on a Newburyport bank.
Minh’s cousin was able to track down the humanitarian priest who was, at that time, pastor for Newburyport’s Immaculate Conception Parish. Father Leonard welcomed the opportunity to help his former pupil and her family.
Dan was first to escape Vietnam by boat in 1985, taking with him the couple’s middle son. “We decided it was best if I remained behind,” says Minh. She explains, “If my husband ran into difficulties, I would be in a position to negotiate and bribe authorities to look the other way as he escaped the country.” Eventually, Dan made his way to America and to the hospitality of Father Leonard. Arriving in Newburyport, Dan and his son found shelter in the Immaculate Conception’s High Street parsonage. They lived there for one year while Dan acclimated himself to his new culture and found employment—he worked two jobs—and waited for his wife and two sons to join him. He would wait three years.
Minh recalls her own harrowing escape two years later, with the couple’s oldest and youngest son in tow. “The boat we were in was 15 feet wide, 8-feet long, and jammed with 128 people. We could not move; we had to sit very still. Guards chased us, and three times we were stopped by communist authorities looking for bribes. It was very, very scary!” They were a week at sea, without food or water. Minh recalls the first island where the boat docked; she and the other refugees were supposed to board another boat for passage to Indonesia. “Communist guards started shooting at us,” Minh says. “We ran in the opposite direction, but we had no compass and didn’t know where we were.” Other refugee boats, flying the flags of various countries, were docked on the island. By chance, Minh says that she found the boat bound for Indonesia. She and her two children boarded.
“Each refugee was given a half-cup of water for the journey,” says Minh. “I brought the cup to my mouth and wet my lips, but I saved the water for my sons,” she remembers. Minh and her children would spend 4-1/2 months in Indonesia at a refugee camp and then another 7 months in the Philippines before eventually arriving in Newburyport on May 27, 1988. Minh smiles widely as she recalls the date and the joy she felt reuniting with her husband and middle child—and also with the priest who made her family’s new life in America possible.
Reached for comment, Father Leonard (who is now retired but still lives in Newburyport) recalls of his former pupil, “Gabrielle was very intelligent, very bright and outgoing.” But he felt sad when he thought of her, he said, because he thought that she had died in the war. So when her cousin contacted him, he remembers, “I was so happy to learn that she was alive. From that moment on, I prayed for Gabrielle and her family’s safe passage to America.” As to sponsoring the Minh family, Father Leonard (who held the position of national chaplain for the Veterans of Foreign Wars) says, “I was overjoyed to be able to do something for Gabrielle.”
Just three months after Minh arrived in Newburyport, Minh, who had been a skilled seamstress in Vietnam, opened her tailor shop. It didn’t take long for locals with pants to hem, dresses to take in, and all types of mending to discover the talented Minh. Of her first impression of Newburyport, Minh remembers, “I liked the peacefulness of the town.” She still loves Newburyport; however, it was in Salisbury where she and Dan bought their house in 1995.
Today Minh keeps close ties with the people of Can Tho, where her sister still lives in the family’s ancestral home. Minh tries to visit every other year, lending assistance to the infirm and to the destitute. She also helped to finance the renovation of the local orphanage. But Minh is most proud of her role in establishing a free medical clinic that ministers care to the poor in her village.
Here in Newburyport, Minh helps with the soup kitchen at St. Paul’s Church. “Life’s purpose is to love people,” Minh says. Minh’s husband Dan echoes his wife’s sentiments. “Loving people gives meaning to life,” he says before taking Minh’s little dog Rita for a walk.
Animals also deserve our compassion and love, Minh believes. She is respectful of all religions, but as a Buddhist, Minh embraces the belief that animals have souls. Witnessing the many injustices committed against human beings, Minh says, allowed her to connect the thread of suffering shared by all God’s creatures. “When my husband was a prisoner, I prayed for his safety. And I prayed also for my middle child to get well.” (Minh explains that her middle son had been quite ill, prior to escaping Vietnam with her husband.) In prayer, Minh says, she promised God that she would respect the life spirit in all His creatures. “This is why I practice a vegan lifestyle,” Minh shares.
Through daily meditation, Minh tends to her soul and nurtures her spirituality. “It’s important to feel at peace,” she says.
With her boys now grown into men with families of their own, Minh also helps tend to her six grandchildren.
Dan, just returned from walking Rita, expresses his feelings for his wife. “I love Gabrielle because she is beautiful and has a good heart.”
Minh, who has been using a seam ripper to remove stitching from an article of clothing, looks up at her husband and smiles.
Kathleen Downey is the Features Editor for Newburyport Today. She can be reached at Kathleen@Newburyport-Today.com.
