Part I – Ancestors

"We were born in Lithuania. Our country was free, like the United States. But during World War II the Soviet Army invaded. We escaped to avoid arrest and execution."

"... she found work as a secretary for the new Lithuanian government seeking to build a democratic republic."

“A newlywed portrait from 1910 of Sena Baba wearing a gold pocket watch around her neck...”

"My twenty-three-year old grandmother in 1936..."

"Jadvyga was raised in a free Lithuania and she fell in love and married Kazys in 1938."

“My tiny mother smiled in a perfectly fitted jumper dress with puffy and lace-trimmed arms.”

"Half the Venckus family were sent to Siberian prison camps."

“In my mind I could see my grandfather Jonas standing on the border with his fellow policemen. Watching Soviet troops cross. Invading.”

“Paulina held my infant father on her lap... They couldn’t have predicted their entire world was going to go to hell two years later.”

“During the war, my toddler father went out into the streets to beg for food for his younger siblings.”

“When my grandfather arrived in Austria, he escaped to search for his family. He zigzagged across Eastern Europe and miraculously found them in a small town in Czechoslovakia.”

“When his family left their Displaced Persons camp in Garmisch, West Germany…”

“Ultimately, his persistence, hard work ethic, and love for the homeland finally won Mom over and they married in 1964.”

“When my grandfather retired from the sugar factory, he and my grandmother joined us in Los Angeles to be closer to the growing Venckus clan.”

"Finally, he stopped and asked how could I be a Scot if I was holding a Lithuanian passport?”"

“When the soldier glanced at my passport and saw my birthplace was Glasgow, he pulled me into a bear hug and said, ‘My hometown! Come with me, fellow Scot!’"

"Her tears fell on me when she turned over the photo so that I could read what was written on the back: Paulina's grave in Siberia 1954. My great-grandmother died in the gulag."