Oakland Underfoot

Patrick Joseph Ryan (1868-1929) was born in Turles, Ireland. He emigrated in the late 1880s to Massachusetts, where he married Margaret T. Meade, a daughter of Irish immigrants. They lost three children in infancy but had better luck when they moved west to Oakland in the early 1900s decade, where they lived at 937 26th Street and had two healthy daughters. He became a naturalized citizen in 1918. The Ancient Order of Hibernians, division #2, sponsored a Mass for him when he died. He’s buried in Hayward.

The Oakland directories list him as a cement worker or contractor from 1904 to 1915. In the 1920 census he said he was a street cleaner for the city, and the 1925 directory listed him as a laborer.

His stamp was always a cockeyed thing with missing and misaligned letters. I have recorded dates of 1910, 1912, 1913 and 1914.

Edwin Lewis George (1847-1920) was born in New Sharon, Maine, one of four children of farmer James P. and Betsey L. George. He moved to Oakland in 1882; he’s listed in the 1884 directory as a farmer living at 484 25th Street. He was registered to vote in Rocklyn in 1884 and in Penryn in 1886, where he must have been a quarry worker. Later in his voter registrations in Oakland, he called himself an expressman (1888-92), a gentleman (1896), a laborer (1898), and a concrete worker (1906-08). He married “Millie/Nellie” Chapman (1848-1928) in Maine in 1866; they had no children. The couple occupy separate niches at Chapel of the Chimes.

As of 1900, Mr. George was carrying out his concrete business at 1046 62nd Street, where the couple moved in 1891. The house numbers appear to have been changed since then, though.

E. L. George marks are almost nonexistent in Oakland, and I’ve found only one with a date of 1912. This example is at 1229 55th Street in Emeryville, one of two on the property.