My great-grandfather came to this country as John Delraso. He arrived in Watertown, Massachusetts in 1918 and enlisted in the United States Army. When he joined, his name was anglicized to Del Rose. The family later closed the space, and we have been DelRose ever since. He shipped overseas as the armistice was being signed, ending World War I, and returned to raise his family on East Berkeley Street in Watertown.
His son, my grandfather Concenzio, known to everyone as Connie, was born on that street. When World War II began, Connie was stationed in Pensacola, Florida, where he served as a flight engine mechanic on a PBY-2 Catalina. After the war ended, he came home, married, and joined the Watertown Fire Department, where he would eventually retire at the rank of Captain.
In the early 1950s, Connie used the GI Bill to purchase a single family ranch in West Watertown. He raised six children in that house. That single decision created the generational wealth that our family carries today.
Owning that home gave my grandfather the ability to save. It gave his children a foundation. It gave his grandchildren a starting point that they never would have had otherwise. The DelRose family, all nineteen grandchildren and thirteen great-grandchildren of Connie and his wife Louisa, exists in the shape it does because one man was able to buy a house.
Entering the 1990s, Connie followed my father Mike Sr. into the real estate business, along with his other two sons John and Peter. He worked until the mid-2000s before retiring. He passed away in 2022.
The more time I spent with Connie, sitting with him, listening to him talk about his life, the clearer my why became. He was not a complicated man. He worked hard, he served his country, he came home and built something. That house in West Watertown was not just a house to him. It was proof that the path was real. That the dream was available if you showed up for it.
Every single day I go to work trying to help people find that same proof. To help them discover the American Dream and to better themselves through their relationship with real estate. That has become harder in Greater Boston than it was in the 1950s. The market is more competitive, the barriers are higher, and the stakes feel bigger. But the outcome is the same. A family with a foundation. A decision that compounds for decades. That is what this work is about, and it is what keeps me energized every morning I walk into it.
