genealogy

Pierce County Tribune
By Andrea Blessum

The sweet smell of a recent rainfall filled the air as Ron Brossart looked out over the flat, grassy land. Although there were no headstones in sight — they had been destroyed years ago, crushed and used for building roads — he was looking at a centuries-old cemetery.

The cemetery was not far from Odessa, Ukraine, the area where Brossart’s ancestors lived before immigrating to the United States....