Not every family knows about their lineage, their identity, the good, the bad, the ugly. But we do. And that speaks volumes to the kinds of lessons we’ve learned and the lens through which we see the future.

For us, we can trace our story back before America was even born, in a tiny province of what would be one of the last outposts of the Holy Roman Empire. That’s where the Stegmans survived the aftermath of the Seven Year War in Germany. Hoping in the promises of Catherine the Great’s Prussian expansion plan, they immigrated through Lubeck to Volga, Russia. The empress’ promises were a bust, and they survived on little more than sheer perseverance through theft, lies, disease and abuse. They dug homes into the earth to survive those first Russian winters. And then just as they were able to sustain a living on wheat, rye and barley, Russia passed a law in 1874 drafting immigrant men away from their families and into military service.