About Us

The Delaware Crossing, LLC is rooted in a family story shaped by courage, endurance, and the pursuit of freedom.

Our story begins in the Volga River region of Russia, where our ancestors lived as German‑Russian farmers, descendants of settlers invited by Catherine the Great in the 1760s. For generations, they built thriving agricultural communities defined by faith, discipline, and resilience.

By the late 1800s and early 1900s, however, the world around them began to change. The special rights once granted to Volga Germans — military exemption, religious freedom, and local self‑governance — were steadily revoked under expanding Russification policies. Economic pressures mounted, and compulsory military service loomed.

Around 1912, part of our family made the difficult decision to leave Russia behind. They secured passage aboard the Letitia, a transatlantic passenger ship of the Anchor‑Donaldson Line, which carried thousands of immigrants from Europe to Canada. After landing in Québec, they traveled by rail across the continent before finally settling in the Pacific Northwest, where they began the long work of rebuilding their lives in a land defined by opportunity rather than oppression.

Yet not all of our ancestors left. Those who remained in Russia faced a far harsher fate.

Under Vladimir Lenin, Volga German communities endured confiscation of grain, suppression of religious life, and the chaos of civil war. After Lenin’s death in 1924, the rise of Joseph Stalin brought even greater suffering. Collectivization stripped families of their farms. The purges of the late 1930s targeted German‑Russian farmers as “enemies of the people.”

And in 1941, following Hitler’s invasion of the Soviet Union, Stalin ordered the mass deportation of the entire Volga German population. NKVD agents arrived without warning. Families were forced onto sealed rail cars and sent on a one‑way journey to the Siberian tundra and Central Asia. Many — including members of our own family — starved, froze, or never returned.

Their courage and suffering are part of our inheritance.

The branch of our family that reached North America survived because they left when they did. The branch that stayed paid the ultimate price. Together, their stories remind us that the promise of freedom is never guaranteed — it is carried forward by those willing to risk everything for hope.

Through our products, we honor that legacy and help others share the stories that define their own pursuit of freedom.