Never Be a Quiter: The Life and Times of Two First Generation Americans

Never by a Quitter, is the true story of two children of working-class Italian immigrants. They were born in South Philadelphia, less than three blocks apart, yet the fates chose to smile on one and scowl at the other. This is the story of my father, his relentless courage and stubborn will to live regardless of the odds. It is also the story of my mother, a five-foot nothing, terminally shy woman; her unwavering faith and seemingly indefatigable determination to save him. This is their story. A story of their childhoods, their struggles. their families and of a relationship that developed between them. A connection that transcended friendship, even love and would remain unbroken for over six decades.

Never be a Quitter is uniquely written to provide the historical and cultural context necessary to understand and appreciate the people who went before us. We cannot view people from the past through a 2021 prism with any hope of understanding who they were as people. History matters, but not an academic history rewritten seventy-five or a hundred years after the fact, but history as the people of the time understood it. This was the context that molded them, their culture, and their worldview. Never Be a Quitter is more than a biography. It is part Italian history, part American history and part military history. The first half of the 20th Century was a very complicated time, seeing perhaps the greatest social and economic upheavle since the fall of the Roman Empire. Without some understanding of those times, an understanding of the people is impossible.