Oakland Underfoot

2803 23rd Avenue

Agostino Maffei was born in San Genese, Italy in 1885 and emigrated to the US in 1902. He had an eighth-grade education and could barely sign his name; he told one census taker he could not write. As of the 1910 census he lived with his new bride Angelina (nee Ardisson; 1892-1985) in Jackson, Amador County, where he worked in a gold mine; by 1918 they lived in Alameda and he worked for an ice company. He’s listed in the 1920s and 1930s Alameda directories. The papers show she was very active at the time with the Alameda Review Women’s Benefit Association while he was a local stalwart in the Woodmen of the World and the Elks. They had no children. The names he went by in the papers went from Augustine to Augustus, then August, and finally Gus. Maffei died in 1978 and is interred in Chapel of the Chimes.

The sidewalks hint that Maffei had a history, presumably as a former partner with someone else. Maybe he was the loser partner and got to keep the stamp, with the partner’s name chiseled off, while the partner had a nice new one made. The business was at Maffei’s home, 818 Pacific Avenue until 1937, then 831 Lincoln Avenue. He retired some time before the 1950 census.

I don’t see many sidewalk contractors from Alameda in Oakland. This is the only Maffei mark I’ve found here, but they seem to be plentiful in Alameda. They all look like this one.