Fred Peter (Federigo Pietro) Ferrero was born in 1883 in Castellamonte, Torino province, Italy, emigrated in 1899, and launched a pottery business in 1920. Around 1927 he changed the firm to Fred Ferrero & Son, with his eldest son Romeo Achilles Ferrero (1908-1998). The other son Aldo Joseph (1912-1987) joined the firm, making it Fred Ferrero & Sons, in 1932. Fred died in 1944. In 1928 the History of Alameda County said about him, “He is a man of excellent personal qualities, straightforward in all his relations, and cordial and friendly in manner, and throughout Alameda County he is held in high regard.”
The company’s address was 1715 Webster Street, Alameda, starting in the early 1920s. Noted work by Ferrero includes the concrete and plaster for the Latham Square Building (1926) and the “art stone and staff ornaments” for the Grant Miller chapel on Telegraph Avenue (1931).
There are only two Fred Ferrero marks on Oakland sidewalks, neither of them dated. This one is on Longfellow Avenue.
Fred and Lucia (1888-1975) as well as Romeo and Jennie (1909-1978) are buried in San Pablo.
Aldo is the A. J. Ferrero of Alameda whose marks appear on Oakland sidewalks from 1952 to 1976. They are elegant and lightly pressed, so that they show up best when the sun is low.
In the mid-1960s, the firm also used this lozenge-shaped mark. It’s identical to the mark used in Alameda for work produced by the City of Alameda, so perhaps they had a contract with the city at that time.
Aldo and Jan (1913-1991) are also buried in San Pablo.
There is also a G. Ferrero, who left a single surviving mark in Oakland from 1927, but he is not mentioned in connection with Fred’s family.
Oakland Underfoot 
16 January 2022 at 1:56 pm
There’s an interesting A.J. Ferrero mark on the east side of Ramona, up toward the Moraga end of the block. It’s a double mark that looks sort of like a hexagon. The year looks like 1954 to me.