It may be a long way from Utah, but when U.S. District Judge David Sam travels to Romania next month, in a sense he will be going home.
Sam's parents came from Romania in 1914, and he has been chosen as one of six judges who will travel to Bucharest next month to help the government there switch from its communist system to a democratic one."It's kind of sobering to think that in a few weeks I'll be there. I really have no knowledge of any of our ancestors," Sam said Tuesday.
But Sam has never taken his heritage lightly. When impaneling a jury, he frequently tells prospective jurors stories about his roots and the struggles his parents went through to get to America.
"I guess sometimes they feel a little put out to be called for jury duty. I just want them to know how honored I am to hear the case," he said.
The first order of business in Romania will be to teach officials there the importance of the judicial system and the role of judges, prosecutors and criminal procedure in a democratic government.
After that, Romanian officials have offered to take Sam and his wife, Betty, to the tiny town of Belia where his parents were born.
Sam said at least two of the other judges in the group have Romanian roots, but he can only guess whether that played a role in the U.S. Information Agency's decision to choose him.
No one in Sam's family has returned to the country since his father, Andrew Sirb, left his pregnant wife there in 1914.
Sam said his father escaped the country "by an eyelash" with money stitched into his collar and tucked into his boots. War was looming when a German officer befriended him and helped him get papers to leave the country.
"The officer let him wire my mother and tell her that he was safe. That was the signal for her to leave," he said.
The couple had decided they would meet in Gary, Ind., where her brother worked at a steel mill. Less than a year later, they arrived.
The family name was changed to Sam when he became a naturalized citizen and his father worked at the same steel mill for 43 years.
"I remember growing up my father would say how blessed we were to bear the great American name of Sam, like Uncle Sam," he said.
Sam ended up in Utah to study at Brigham Young University and then the University of Utah.
He was appointed to the federal bench Nov. 1, 1985.