STOCKTON, Minn. – Tina Hauser was watching the clock, eager for 7:30 for a video chat with her son. He had been freed days earlier from Russian custody in Crimea. There was a knock at the door. There he was – in person. “I went for that first hug and it was just awesome,” Hauser told a KAAL interviewer. “Then I had to have a second one because I was like, is this real?” Tyler Jacob, 28, had been detained three weeks earlier on his way out of southern Ukraine, where he taught school. He was held incommunicado 10 days. Finally h was released through U.S. diplomatic efforts. Now Hauser is looking forward to meeting her son’s Ukrainian wife and stepdaughter. They were extricated rom the war zone separately.
Mother and son. Hauser kept this photograph on her fireplace mantel during the harrowing wait for her son’s release from Russian captors.