The kids wanted to get Grandma something extra special for Christmas, but what do you get someone for whom faith and family are everything?

Fortunately, Susan Abelmann wasn’t shy about sharing the lone item on her wish list.

"I asked them to do a service for someone else," Abelmann says.

Those who know the charity-minded Abelmann would hardly be surprised by the request. But not everyone knows the breadth and depth of experiences that shaped her humanitarian worldview.

Abelmann was born into a wealthy family in Korea, although the Korean War claimed her father’s life and reduced the family’s wealth to naught.

Abelmann and her sister were passed to the care of relatives. At age 7, Abelmann was placed in an orphanage, where she and the other children survived horrific deprivation by eating plants, flowers, insects, even frogs if they could catch them. When American soldiers dropped off toiletry supplies, the children filled their aching stomachs with toothpaste and packing material, she says.

"It was not a good situation," Abelmann says. "But when you’re in a dark place, you can either succumb or you can get stronger and find something good to hold on to."

Abelmann was later adopted by an American couple and brought to the United States.

She said her exposure to religion provided a foundation for her later happiness.

After earning a degree in business administration from San Francisco State University, Abelmann spent two weeks in South Korea, where she reunited with her mother and sister. The experience, she says, gave her a sense of connection to her native culture and to her war-torn family.

Abelmann made her way to Hawaii, where she found work as a legal secretary and later met her husband, Bill Abelmann, whom she calls "the most unselfish, wonderful human being ever."

They have three children — Rick, Julia and Jonathan — and four grandchildren (with two more on the way), all raised on Abelmann’s exhortations to "be loving, be a friend, always be kind and stay strong in church."

Last Christmas, Rick’s family went all-out to fulfill Abelmann’s wish, sending boxes of lovingly selected gifts to children in Indonesia, gathering blankets and other supplies for a local shelter, buying clothes for needy children and collecting items for a school-sponsored food drive.

"It made me cry," Abelmann says. "It was just what I wanted."

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Reach Michael Tsai at mtsai@staradvertiser.com.