Oakland Underfoot

Natale Lena (1885-1977) was born on a farm near Lucca, Italy, and came to America in 1902, arriving in the Bay area five years later. By then he knew enough about the concrete trade to get work in San Francisco. In 1908 he moved to Alameda and worked for the contractor Alexander LaPlant. He went solo in 1914, but a few “Lena & Helling Makers” stamps exist in Oakland from a collaboration with William G. Helling with dates of 1913 and 1915.

Merritt’s 1928 History of Alameda County states, “When he started in business for himself in Alameda he began in a small way. All concrete at that time was mixed on boards with a shovel, and a wheelbarrow was used to transport it to the concrete forms. The people of Alameda can well remember Nat Lena and his start in the cement contracting business but he laid a fine foundation for his future enterprise, and today he ranks as one of the largest and best known cement contractors in the Bay cities, while his equipment is modern and up to date in his line.” By the early 1930s his company operated from a compound in Oakland at 1174 19th Street, which still survives.

Nat and his wife Emma (1888-1954), who married in 1907, had no children. He was a member of the venerable Oakland Rotary Club for 46 years, and a Mason as well. Commenter Linda Hamilton recalled, “In 1978, following his death, Nat left $85,000 to the Club’s scholarship fund started with funds left by Sugar and Rice Manufacturer Al Saroni upon his death in 1961. By 2009, the Saroni-Lena Scholarship Fund provided one million dollars to over 600 Oakland teens to go to college.” And it’s still going strong.

Lena marks in Oakland run from 1920 to 1953. At first he used a racetrack-format stamp, though he would sometimes draw a mark by hand.

During 1934 he switched to an arched-text stamp with the name “Nat. Lena,” and he got a new stamp without the period after “Nat” in 1946.

Merritt’s history also notes, “He is one of the prominent members of the Cheese Rollers Club of San Francisco, an Italian organization, in which the members play a game similar to the American game of bowling, excepting that they use balls of cheese instead of wooden balls. Mr. Lena is an expert player and has won a number of prizes at this game.”

Livio Giovanni Scaramelli (1902–1969) was born in Lucca and emigrated from Italy at age five to Alameda with his mother Maria, joining his father Pietro who had emigrated five years before. He went by Lee John Scaramelli off and on during his life. He married Alma Ballwanz at age 22, at which time he worked as a welder. His father died in 1915 and in 1923 his mother married tile worker Antonio “Anthony” Falcier (1870–1949), another Italian immigrant, who trained Livio in his business, and in 1924 he appeared in the directory as a tilesetter. By 1926 he’d changed his listing to cement contractor and started to advertise in the papers. He moved a few times in Alameda, but from 1934 to 1949 he was at 815 Santa Clara Avenue before relocating to Walnut Creek. He advertised his services (for patios and floors) as late as 1957. He died in Carson City, Nevada.

In 1938 a newspaper puff piece said about him, “‘Lasting Satisfaction’ is his motto, and the only order he gives the five men working for him is: ‘The best is none too good.’ . . . [He] has the gold of kindness in his nature . . . is never a backslider in boosting the home town and would find friends even on Robinson Crusoe’s island.”

L. Scaramelli sidewalk stamps have dates from 1927 to 1954. In the 1940s he drew his dates by hand in a sure, elegant script.

They all have a period—“Scaramelli.”—at the end.