For Linda Hunt, knowing her family history is a crucial part of knowing who she is.
Last year, Hunt, a professor at Pacific University's School for Occupational Therapy, created the project "From Where I Came," a website where people can record and share their stories and photos about traveling to the land of their ancestors.
Up until a few years ago, Hunt believed her family roots were in Russia. As a child, her father told her that he and his family had fled Russia in 1917, at the start of the Russian Revolution.
As a child, instead of playing house Hunt would pretend to be a Russian peasant girl working in the fields. Tolstoy quickly became one of her favorite authors and she was sure the setting of “Fiddler on the Roof” was modeled after her father’s village.
When Hunt’s father passed away in 1995, her mother gifted her with a copy of his passport and other well-worn documents from his life. As she began to look through the pages, she realized that her father wasn’t from Russia; he was from Lithuania.
Lithuania?
Hunt knew next to nothing about the Eastern European nation bordered by Latvia, Belarus and Poland.
As she researched more of Lithuania’s history, riddled over the decades with foreign occupations, Hunt found her father’s confusion about his homeland understandable.
'From Where I Came':
In Hunt's Innovative Practice Projects class at Pacific University’s School of Occupational Therapy, students Kevin Daverman, Brielyn Pager and Niki Pantazis have joined the effort to encourage the discovery of family history through interviews and posting stories on the "From Where I Came" website. If you would like to share your story, or for more information, visit
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“He must have thought he was from Russia because when he lived in Lithuania they were speaking Russian at the time. My family also spoke Yiddish,” Hunt said, describing her family’s strong ties to their Jewish heritage.
Craving more information, Hunt asked her cousins to tell her any family stories they knew. Much to her chagrin, she discovered that none of them had ever asked their parents about life in Eastern Europe.
Perhaps it was fate when Hunt received an invitation to speak at the 2012 conference for the European Network of Occupational Therapists in Higher Education, which happened to be in Lithuania. She accepted, and began to plan a trip with her husband and daughter to explore the towns where her family once lived.
While there, Hunt and her family drove to Vilnius, Lithuania’s capital. It was in this unexpectedly foreign place that Hunt found hope.
“I saw foods that I had grown up eating,” Hunt said, describing the loaves of challah and candy-topped cookies that her grandmother made for her as a child.
Walking through the streets of Lithuanian towns, Hunt said her daughter had a beautiful realization.
“She said, ‘The people here look like me.’ That was so powerful,” Hunt said.
When Hunt returned to the states, she said it was difficult to process her feelings.
“If you don’t go to visit the places where your ancestors were born,” Hunt said, “you are missing an important aspect of your identity. Seeing the places solidified parts of my past, things I took for granted about myself.”
Hunt said knowing where you come from begins with asking questions, each answer paving the foundation that builds the family narrative.
“It amazes me that we don’t ask questions of our parents,” Hunt said. “It brings families closer together. Reminiscing is a wonderful intergenerational activity. I wish I had asked questions. It’s a tragedy when we don’t.”