Giuseppe Antonio La Maida (1882-1968) went by many names: Joseph, Tony, T.G., and assorted misspellings of Giuseppe. (His tombstone reads “Guisseppi”!) Born in Teggiano, Salerno, Italy, La Maida immigrated to the U.S. in the 1890s and married his first wife Congetta in New York in 1903. Within a year they relocated to Los Angeles, where they would have five children. Congetta died of tuberculosis in 1917 – she was only 31 – and a couple of years later the family moved to North Hollywood and set up a ranch north of present-day Colfax and Riverside. It was at least fifty acres, just part of La Maida’s holdings across the SFV. La Maida Street (originally “Avenue”) was named in 1923; the family residence still stands at La Maida and Bellflower. Giuseppe La Maida’s marriage to his second wife Virginia, who came with a son from a previous union, was rife with drama: they apparently were wed in 1919, had a daughter (Betty) in 1920, then for some reason got married again in 1926. Six years later, Virginia filed for divorce, but the couple had reconciled by 1937. She filed for divorce again in 1944 and this time it stuck.
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