Oakland Underfoot

Robert O. Appleby was born in Newbottle, County Durham, England, in 1883, where the 1901 census listed him as a “horse shoer above and below ground,” presumably in the coal mines. He escaped that miserable life to America in 1905, where he married Winifred E., another English immigrant who came to America in 1907. The 1910 census listed the couple and their first child as living in Linda township in Yuba County, where he and all his neighbors were gold dredgers.

Appleby showed up in the Oakland business directory in 1917. The 1920 census listed him as a blacksmith at the shipyards, living at 2500 63rd Avenue with Winifred and their two daughters. Looks like the house is still there.

In 1925 he changed his directory listing from blacksmith to cement contractor, a status he kept at least until the 1940 census.

I’ve recorded a sprinkling of his marks all around Oakland, dating from 1931 to 1937.

He was still at the 63rd Avenue address in 1944. He died in 1968 at a ripe old age, while Winifred died in 1962. She’s buried at Mountain View Cemetery, but I have no information about him.

Thomas Joseph Garvey was born in Fresno in 1898; his father John J. Garvey was a Kansan of Irish descent and his mother Elizabeth was a Northern Irish native. By 1910 his family was living in Oakland, and he grew up at various addresses along Adeline Street. His 1918 draft registration form described him as a tall man of medium build, with blue eyes and brown hair.

He followed his father briefly into shipfitting, but in 1927 he was in business as a concrete contractor, living with his wife Fern (born in 1900) at 716 8th Street. As of 1930 the couple had moved up to 5686 Ocean View Drive, and from 1937 on they lived at 4520 Harbord Drive.

T. J. Garvey’s marks fall rather neatly into three periods. This was his first stamp.

By the early 1930s, his stamp had begun to degrade, and he was touching it up by hand.

Most of his marks from then through the war years were partly or fully hand-drawn. Then in 1947 he got a new stamp that used a serifed font, like Courier.

He used this one consistently through the 1950s. The latest mark I have is this one from 1958, on Tunnel Road.

Garvey died in 1960, and his wife lived on in the Harbord Drive home at least through the 1960s. She died in 1987, and both are buried in Holy Sepulcher Cemetery in Hayward.

Marks from T. J. Garvey’s 32-year career are scattered widely throughout Oakland, though only a small fraction of them bear dates. You can at least assign them a decade just by looking at them. I’m only missing examples from 1929, 1932, 1942, 1943, 1945 and 1957. Perhaps they survive in neighboring cities.