Setting Roots: From refugee to orchard owner, immigrant builds new life for family of 12

SBJ PHOTO BY WES HAMILTON

Cornelius Gradinariu is standing on his bakery porch on a breezy morning viewing rows of fruit trees, but in his mind, he’s an ocean and a lifetime away standing at the Romanian border viewing rows of armed guards.

For three quarters of a mile, border patrol soldiers wielding massive weapons stood watching for anyone attempting to illegally exit the country. Cornelius does the math: Each soldier carried four magazines with 46 bullets each. There were too many soldiers to count.

Read the article in the Springfield Business Journal