Mrs. Butti (nee Campera) talks of how she met Enrico when she was 12 years old when she went to Nordegg to visit a married sister and help her after the birth of a child. The Buttis were friends of her brother-in-law and family; Edmonton has been her home since November 1914; she remembers the big flood in the Rossdale Flats when houses floated down the Saskatchewan River. She reminisces about her grandparents who had land and her Grandfather raised pigs and made his own wine. He had first emigrated to Wilmingdon, Delaware in the U.S. Her Father, Lorenzo
Campera, and his four or five brothers went into prospecting, painting, bricklaying and construction. Their descendants are still doing the same things. Her Father and his brothers left the U.S. and came to Edmonton in 1912. She notes that her Father, in the old country, was an artist who painted cathedrals but here he worked at the post office. Her Mother died in 1917 and her Father remarried and returned to the U.S. leaving his children in Edmonton. He brother Raymond [Renaldo' also worked in the post office until his retirement when the Postmaster General came from Ottawa to give him a medal. He was also a violinist who played in the Symphony.
Mr. Butti talks about Communism in Edmonton and a rally at City Hall in the 1930s; he mentions two Italians who were Communists, Peter Domico and Campato
Mr. Butti had provided the interviewers with a list of Italian immigrants
including Fiore Aloisio; his son Tino; Vittorio Alloro; Lucy
and Tony Sargus; Frank Capello, James (Jimmy)
Anselmo; Felice Nigro; Luigi Tonso, Pietro Cobortaldo; Vittorio Losa;
Giuseppe Naccarato; Peter Domico; Giovanni Segato; Giuseppe Guggio; Domenico Chiarello;
Francesco Cichetti; Joe and Assunta Gaudioo; Joe
Paulo; Florenzo (Florindo) Comin; Luigi Biamonte;
Bruno Lavorato; Francesco Romeo; Pietro Beccio; Luigi
DeLuca;
Carlino Nicola and Tony Nimis
Recounts visit by the Italian singer Baccaroni, who came to Edmonton at the end of the W.W. I; he asked to meet Italians and Mr. Butti went to see him at the MacDonald Hotel; he sang at the MacDougall Church
Speaks of the house his Father bought in Edmonton on 106th Avenue between 97th and 97th Streets; he bought it from a Ukrainian; the house was big but as taxes started to go up, he couldn't pay for them and started to rent out rooms; Boyle Street was fine area but has deteriorated; built his shop on 95th Street.
Talks about the coal mines in the City of Edmonton and, then, the conversion to gas; perceived dangerous initially but, after the war, when thermostats were introduced, it gained acceptance; remembers in 1927 New Year's Day when Edmonton was getting gas from Viking; something went wrong with the pipeline and the
gas blew and it had to be cut off to houses; the City then insisted that another pipeline had to be brought in
Talks of early emigration-at the time when Edmonton became the provincial capital there was much work: two railroads, the Canadian Northern and the Grand Trunk started lines; provides short history of the companies because he was looking after the refrigerators and other machines for these companies both before and during W.W. II.
Heritage Community Foundation Presents
