In this book-length meditation, Heilman takes us along on his journeys retracing the migrations of his family from Alsace, France to Russia in 1810 and on to Kazakhstan and the American Midwest. Along the way he brings us a history of the times and of the fates of a farming family in search of land, freedom and security through troubled times ranging from the Reign of Terror in eighteenth century France, the Russian Revolution, Stalin’s purges and World War II. The effects of his German-Russian ethnic group’s migrations still linger today sparking controversy in modern day Germany.