When I said I intended to return to the money beat after finishing my book, I meant it. On New Year’s Day in 2020, I remember thinking how grateful I was to have the opportunity to learn a new skill and use my words to write on a topic that mattered to me. The three monthly blogs I wrote for businessjournalism.org met the Reynolds Center for Business Journalism’s mission of helping business journalists improve their personal finance coverage, my editor said.

A few weeks later, the Covid-19 pandemic changed the narrative of our lives and forced all of us to make some changes. That’s when I decided to put my freelance work on hold and finish writing my grandfather’s story. For years, I put my notes aside to meet deadlines, but this time, I promised myself, I wouldn’t stop until I found the “rest of the story” I grew up listening to my father tell.

My grandfather was more than the sick old man I heard about in my father’s story. Concezio Perrucci served in the Italian Army’s Calvary and he could read and write English, but my grandfather worked two dirty, dangerous jobs in construction and for Central Jersey Railroad to build the house where I grew up with my six siblings in Scotch Plains, New Jersey. When he got sick with Parkinson’s, there was no medication to treat the devastating neurological condition that lived with for 24 years. Parkinson’s may have derailed his dreams, but he never stopped fighting.

As I searched for information, I learned that my grandfather first arrived in America in 1906, when he was 16 years old. He was a “bird of passage,” a migrant worker who joined the flock of more than two million young men flooding out of South Italy’s impoverished Mezzogiorno. Like most “birds of passage,” after returning to Italy, he made a second—and final—trip to America in 1913 after realizing he couldn’t build a future in his beloved homeland.

When I found that fact, I began calling my book-in-progress Searching for Concezio: The Courage and Endurance of South Italy’s “Birds of Passage.”  I believe that my grandfather Concezio’s story mirrors the untold stories of all the “birds of passage” never been given credit for their role in building modern America. The enthusiastic response I received at my hometown’s 2022 Columbus Day celebration convinced me that my book will find its way into print (Searching for Concezio – YouTube).

Money may make the world go round, but courage and sacrifice and loyalty and devotion gives it its true worth.

Please read my blog, Searching for Concezio, and share your story with me. To have me speak to your civic or community group, or to subscribe to my email newsletter, contact me here.