Interview with Pasqualina Pat Adamo

Pasqualina Pat Adamo is the granddaughter of Francesco and Filomena Guzzo, who immigrated to Ottawa before the 1900s. Her father was Pasquale Adamo and her mother was Mary Capello. During World War II her grandparents were designated enemy aliens and had to report weekly to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) office on Sparks Street, in downtown Ottawa. At that time her father Pasquale Adamo was already deceased. Pat was 12 years old during the period and she recounts how grateful her family was that her grandparents were not interned and were only inconvenienced with having to sign in. She recounts how her family did not experience any other discrimination or hardship during that time, other one incident Pat had with a classmate at school. The Guzzo-Adamo grocery store was the first Italian store to be built on Preston Street, an area that would become Ottawa’s Little Italy. The Guzzo-Adamos were part of the handful of the first wave of Italian immigrants to Ottawa who not only built Little Italy, but also were instrumental in building the first Italian Canadian Church, St. Anthony of Padua, at the corner of Gladstone and Booth Streets.