A woman who was found as a baby by a roadside in Yeongju in 1975 and later adopted to the United States is returning to the city to search for information about her family. Korean records identify her as Lee Young-hye; she is now known as Paula Mercer and is 51 years old. She plans to visit Yeongju on October 14 with support from the adoptee-return organization Me & Korea.
Records from a Daegu children’s home say she was estimated to have been born on April 25, 1975, and was found on May 6 in the Gahung 1-ri area of what was then Yeongju-eup. She was later transferred to the Daegu facility after a request from the local administration. Those records provide a location and timeline but not the identity of her birth family.
The visit is therefore less a reunion than a search for witnesses, relatives or anyone who can add information to a file that has remained incomplete for more than five decades. The group helping her has said she hopes to meet family or acquaintances if anyone recognizes the circumstances. Her case also reflects the practical limits many overseas adoptees face when institutional records are the only surviving link to their origins.