David’s Family Immigration History

My family has been in America for quite a long time.  I have heard that my mother’s family descends from Isaac Stearns, who came to America in 1630 and then served as secretary to Governor John Winthrop, the first Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony.  My mother’s family eventually came to live in Aurora, Illinois, where my mother was the oldest of four children.

My father’s family had come from Germany several generations before WWI, and I have been told that they were fur traders in northern Wisconsin, circa 1890, before settling down in Racine, Wisconsin and becoming farmers.  My father’s mother was born and raised on the family farm in Kenosha County, Wisconsin.  My father has a younger sister, who still lives in Racine Wisconsin.

After high school my father attended University of Chicago and studied chemistry.  He then attended University of Wisconsin and attended graduate school at Northwestern University in Chicago.  After high school, my mother attended Webster University in St. Louis Missouri and then graduate school for journalism at Northwestern University, where she met my father.

Note from the Managing Partner: this is part of a series of blogs I have asked each of our employees to write.  We want to highlight the diversity of our backgrounds and immigration history.