All posts by Kristin

T – The Twenty-Third of April

A-Z Challenge 2025, Indianapolis, Kentucky

For this year’s A to Z Challenge, I will be posting an event for that date involving someone in my family tree. Of course it will also involve the letter of the day. It may be a birth, a death, a christening, a journal entry, a letter or a newspaper article. If the entry is a news item, it will be transcribed immediately below. Click on photographs to enlarge in another window.

Hugh Marion (Reed) Averette
Pearl Reed about 1904
Pearl Doris Reed 1904

My grandmother Pearl’s older brother, Hugh Marion Reed was born April 23, 1876, in Lebanon, Marion County, Kentucky.  His family moved to Indianapolis and he grew up there. His later years were spent in Los Angeles, California.


His older siblings George and Sarah were in Indianapolis by 1887. His mother, Anna, and the rest of the family were there by 1892. That would make Hugh between 11 and 16 when he moved to Indiana.He finished the eighth grade and worked as a laborer for several years before enlisting in the US Army at age 22.  He was discharged on November 13, 1898 in Willets Pointe, Queens, New York and  joined the US Navy a month later.  He worked as a Coal Passer on the USS Newark. The Newark saw action in South America and Asia.  In 1900, Hugh was in China. He left the Navy the following year in Boston, Massachusetts. He returned to Indianapolis, Indiana and resumed life as a civilian.

Blanche Celeste with Theresa and Thomas

In 1906 he married Blanche Celeste Young.  The occupation listed on the marriage license was janitor. Their oldest daughter Anna Roberta was born in 1907. Hugh junior was born in 1910. Theresa Pearl was born in 1913 and Thomas Perry, the youngest, was born in 1916.

Hugh jr, Thomas and Theresa, Anna


I could not find a death record for him or any member of his family. Then, I got a phone call from my cousin’s husband Eric, (a fellow researcher and a very good one!). He told me to check my messages on Ancestry.com and waited while I did. Now, he never calls so I knew this had to be big. It was. He had found Hugh’s death record and the reason we couldn’t find him. Hugh’s name on the death record was listed as Hugh Reed Averette. The family had moved to California, changed their name and decided to fade into the white population by “passing”. Averit was the last name of Hugh, Minnie, Clarence and my grandmother Pearl’s birth father – Buford Averit, a doctor with an office in nearby Bradfordsville Kentucky. As far as I know they never shared a house and there are no family stories that he supported his children or made life easier for Anna. In fact, I know nothing about the nature of their relationship except that they had 4 children together. Hugh was the first of the children. There are no contemporary records that prove this relationship, but DNA matches between me and descendants of Buford’s siblings provide proof in addition to family memories.

Hugh Reed Averette died on November 13, 1951.

More About Hugh

Hugh Marion Reed Averette – Navy Experience
Oct. 29, 1905 – A Walk Into the Country, A New Aqueduct And A New Post Office
Training Duke – Sepia Saturday #111

S – Seated Left to Right…

A-Z Challenge 2025, African-American Genealogy & Slave Ancestry Research, Detroit, Grahams

For this year’s A to Z Challenge, I will be posting an event for that date involving someone in my family tree. Of course it will also involve the letter of the day. It may be a birth, a death, a christening, a journal entry, a letter or a newspaper article. If the entry is a news item, it will be transcribed immediately below. Click on photographs to enlarge in another window.

The Detroit Tribune Detroit, Michigan • Sat, Apr 22, 1939 Page 1

At Third Annual Youth Conference

A group of delegates who attended the third annual Conference at Plymouth Congregational church last week. Seated left to right are: Roger Canfield, Mary Virginia Graham (note: my mother’s sister), Alice Stanton, Ida Pettiford, and Mary Goodson. Standing left to right. Frank Elkins, Clarence Woods, and the Rev. Horace White, pastor of Plymouth.

The Michigan Chronicle
Detroit, Michigan • Sat, Mar 18, 1939 Page 6

Local Youth Plan Spring Conference

Rev. Horace White On Planning Board

Plans are well under way for a Youth conference which is scheduled to be held early in April. The planning committee, consisting of: Theodore Crosby, Clarence Bradfield, Herbert Simms, Todd Cleage (note; my father. His nickname was Toddy), Oscar Hand, Porter Dillard, Pearl Walker, Gloster Current, Clarence Bradley, Flossie Williams, Edward Swan, Ida M. Pettiford, Louise Blackman, Florine Cage, Lawrence Green, chairman and others, met last Monday evening to discuss further already tentative plans. The theme of the meeting will be “The World We Live In.” Todd Cleage was appointed to submit plans for the conduct of sessions dealing with change in government.

Edward Swan was appointed chairman of projects. Louise Blackman is chairman of sessions dealing with personal and social philosophies; Porter Dillard, chairman of the student sessions, and Pearl Walker, chairman of publicity.

Sharecropper Here

Rev. Horace White announced at the last meeting that there was a possibility of securing as main speaker for meet the outstanding hero of the recent sharecropper dilemma occurring recently in southeastern Missouri, the Reverend Owen Whitfield.

It is expected that Langston Hughes will also appear as a main attraction. The next committee meeting will be held Monday evening at Plymouth Congregational Church at 9 p.m. All youth groups interested in participating are requested to contact Lawrence Green at Plymouth church..

The Michigan Chronicle
Detroit, Michigan • Sat, Apr 15, 1939Page 3

SPEAKER URGES FAITH IN LIFE AND IN RACE

‘Best Poetry, Not Books, But In Lives Of Men And Women’

“For want of a poet, the people perished,” is an old allegation. but last Sunday evening the people, many of them. lived and were inspired to dare new deeds and new dreams when Langston Hughes, dusky poet, traveler, playwright, lecturer and novelist, in convincingly courageous vein painted graphically, word pictures of the elements which contribute to the making of a virile, progressive race.

Poems of the People

Most of the numbers read by Mr. Hughes were as is characteristic of most of his poetry, poems of the people, their struggles and hardships. His appreciation for the realism therein expressed was emphasized, when In comment he said. “The best poetry is not written in books, but comes from the lives of men and women in the streets.” Representative of this belief were the poems “Elevator Boy” and “Porter.”

Mass Awareness Urged

Urging a comprehensive appreciation of the political structure within which we live, Hughes urged an awareness on the part of the masses of political trends indicating that out of Fascism come such enemies of Justice as unemployment, Jim crowism and economic oppression of millions. Specifically referred to were the recent Scottsboro case and the plight of millions of sharecroppers and tenant farmers throughout the south.

In the poems “Flight” and “Lynching Song” the poet revealed the dogged courage and determination of the Negro in the face of adversity and averred that “Poverty and lynching can kill a strong race.”

“Faith in life, self and the earth, helps a race, as it does an individual to live and to grow,” the poet contended. “It. has been said that no man lives alone and Negroes, to save and bring out the best in life for himself, must unite with other groups and classes whose problems are similar and whose solutions to problems lie in the same channel as the the Negro’s,” Hughes continued.

“The black man through correct evaluation of and reaction to his peculiar situation can teach other races what true Americanism is. The possibilities for resurrection from the dismal. abyss of inertia, the chilly tomb of oppression.’ according to the poet,. “are within the race.”

Closes Season

The presentation of Mr. Hughes marked the end of the successful mid-winter lecture season conducted by the lecture committee of Plymouth Congregational church of which Rev. Horace A. White is pastor. Mrs. Whitby is chairman of the committee..

Oh Freedom After While

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Out Yonder on the Road – long article about the sharecroppers demonstration in 1939. Includes photos, causes, methods and end result.

R – Receives Check

A-Z Challenge 2025, Cleages, Springfield, MA

For this year’s A to Z Challenge, I will be posting an event for that date involving someone in my family tree. Of course it will also involve the letter of the day. It may be a birth, a death, a christening, a journal entry, a letter or a newspaper article. If the entry is a news item, it will be transcribed immediately below. Click on photographs to enlarge in another window.

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THE SPRINGFIELD UNION, Saturday, Apr 21, 1951,Springfield, MA, page: 24

COMMUNITY GOOD WISHES–A gift went with good wishes to Rev. Albert B. Cleage, Jr., left, at Hotel Kimball last night. William C. Jackson offers the gift as George A. Laws stands by. Mr. Cleage, minister of St. John’s Congregational Church five years, will become minister of St. Mark’s Community Church, Detroit, Mich., May 1.

Thank You’ Said to Mr. Cleage by 25 Men for His Work Here

When Rev. Albert B. Cleage, Jr., resigned as St. John’s Congregational Church minister to go to Detroit, Mich., William C. Jackson had an idea that he took up with George A. Laws, chairman of the St. John’s standing Committee.
The result was that 25 men, representing Springfield’s Negro community, had dinner with Mr. Cleage at Hotel Kimball last night.
They came from different churches, different professions, different parts of the city.
But they came for the same reason: to say “thank you” to Mr. Cleage for five years of effort toward church, community and racial improvement.
Around the dinner table, among others,, were James H. Higgins, former Common Council president; Rev. Frederick A. Brown, assistant pastor, Alden Street Baptist Church; Walter English, Buckingham Junior High School teacher; Ernest Harrison, contractor.
Also Dr. O. L. K. Fraser, dentist; Reginald Funn, former president of the local chapter, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People: Paul Mason, Ward 4 councilman.
And a group of St. John’s members; Robert Daniels, Romeo Elder, Russell Harrison, Howard Porter, Emery Butler and Eugene Sommerville.

Moving day. Me and sister with friends and their mother.

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Rev. Albert B. Cleage was my father. My sister and I were born in Springfield, Massachusetts where he was pastor of St. John’s Congregational Church. We moved back to Detroit, where both sides of our extended family lived when I was 4 and my sister was 2. That is where he became pastor of St. Mark’s United Presbyterian Community Church which ended up in the fight and split described in the post Q-Quite a Goal. Going alphabetically does put events out of chronological order.

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Other posts with my memories of living in Springfield

Moving – Springfield to Detroit 1951
Moving Day Springfield to Detroit Revisited – 1951
T – The Thief of Baghdad & A Waltz
K is for King St. Springfield, MASS
U is for Union Street
M – Milkman
L – Leaves


Social Sixteen

African-American Genealogy & Slave Ancestry Research, Cleages, Detroit, Grahams, , ,

This is an extra post and not a part of the A to Z Challenge. I wanted to share this post for two reasons, there is a photograph of Dee Dee’s Godfather, Jack Franklin sitting in front on the left. And even more so because finally I found a news item describing a gathering at someone’s house and they told us what food was served! I found the recipe below in The Household Searchlight Recipe Book from 1931.

"The Social Sixteen"
The Social Sixteen – 1937. Howard Tandy, Phyllis Lawson, Shirley Turner, John Roxbourough, Doris Graham, Bob Johnson, Christine Smoot, Bud Elkins, Gladys House, Bobby Douglas, Walter House, Lewis Graham, Connie Stowers, Burney Watkins, Jean Johnson, Barbara Cleage, Jack Franklin, Mary V. Graham.
The Detroit Tribune, Detroit, Michigan • Sat, Dec 4, 1937 Page 5

SOCIAL SIXTEEN CLUB The Social Sixteen Club met at the home of Miss Barbara Cleage on Scotten avenue. All members were present and the meeting progressed with the president, Miss Doris Graham presiding. The minutes of the last meeting were read by the secretary, Miss Shirley Turner. Old business was called for and discussed. The new business dealt with the party that the club is planning to give in the near future.
Jack Franklin, who is an amateur photographer and is one of the club’s members, took flood-light pictures of the members present.
Refreshments, which consisted of tuna fish and cheese sandwiches and orange-gingerale drink, was served by the hostess. This repast was enjoyed by all present.

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I found this Sandwiches of History site where he actually makes this sandwich. I had to add it.

Cheese Tuna Sandwich (1937) on Sandwiches of History⁣
byu/SuperHappyFunSlide inSandwichesofHistory

Q – Quite a Goal

A-Z Challenge 2025, Detroit

For this year’s A to Z Challenge, I will be posting an event for that date involving someone in my family tree. Of course it will also involve the letter of the day. It may be a birth, a death, a christening, a journal entry, a letter or a newspaper article. If the entry is a news item, it will be transcribed immediately below. Click on photographs to enlarge in another window.

Rev. Albert B. Cleage – 1957
Detroit Free Press Detroit, Michigan • Thu, Apr 9, 1953 Page 10

NAACP Chief to Open Detroit Member Drive

Roy Wilkins, administrator of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, will be the principal speaker at a public rally opening the 1953 membership drive of the Detroit branch NAACP at 3:30 p. m. April 19 at Ebenezer AME Church, Brush and Willis.
A parade from the Art Institute to the church will precede the rally. The Rev. Albert B. Cleage, Jr., is chairman of the drive.
L. Pearl Mitchell, special secretary of the NAACP, will direct the Detroit drive which seeks 7,500 members.
Attorney Edward Turner is president of the Detroit NAACP branch, and Arthur L. Johnson is executive secretary.

In April 1953 my father had just been dismissed from St. Mark’s United Presbyterian Community Church, where he had been pastor for several years, in a dispute with the governing Presbyterian body. Over 300 members resigned, leaving about 35 members in the congregation.

CHURCH MEMBERS QUIT IN SQUABBLE
Protest Dismissal of Young Detroit Pastor

Detroit – Rev. Albert B. Cleage, jr., was dismissed as pastor of St. Mark’s United Presbyterian Community church, here this week by the Committee of Missions of the Detroit Presbytery, the United Presbyterian church.
Members of the congregation protested the action by a wholesale resignation.
Dismissal of Reverend Cleage was the result of protests lodged with the committee by five church members, including Henry W. Cleage, the pastor’s uncle, following their resignation from the church in January.
OBJECT TO PROGRAM
The group objected to the young minister’s program of cultural and social activities, which, they said, interfered with the spiritual functions of the church.
Explaining their action the committee said problems of church discipline were also involved.
The charges against Reverend Cleage generally accused him of ignoring the authority of the committee and failure to program church activities in conformance with views of the committee.
MEMBERS NOT ASKED
Members of the congregation protested they had not been consulted in the dismissal. They had no word of the committee’s action until it was announced by the pastor.
Congregation members protested the dismissal without investigation and resigned from the church en masse.
At last reports they were organizing a new church with Reverend Cleage as pastor.
REPLACEMENT UNKNOWN
A replacement for St. Marks’ has not been announced. Approximately 35 members of the congregation remain.
One member said he did not resign because “two wrongs do not make a right.” He said that he objected to the dismissal but could not agree with the mass resignations.
The resigning members of the congregation said the Presbytery’s failure to consult or consider them in the matter made “it impossible for us to continue as members of this church.”

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A related post -> A Church and Two Brothers – Two Splits 1953

P – Playing Chess

A-Z Challenge 2025, African-American Genealogy & Slave Ancestry Research

For this year’s A to Z Challenge, I will be posting an event for that date involving someone in my family tree. Of course it will also involve the letter of the day. It may be a birth, a death, a christening, a journal entry, a letter or a newspaper article. If the entry is a news item, it will be transcribed immediately below. Click on photographs to enlarge in another window.

Where to move

My youngest son Cabral Williams thinking about his next move during the Ludington Optimist Chess Tournament held Saturday at the Ludington High School Library. Children 16 and under participated in the annual event.

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When we lived in Idlewild, Michigan, both of my sons participated in the annual Chess Tournament. You can read more about that at C – CHESS

O – Oh for a good nights sleep!

A-Z Challenge 2025, African-American Genealogy & Slave Ancestry Research

For this year’s A to Z Challenge, I will be posting an event for that date involving someone in my family tree. Of course it will also involve the letter of the day. It may be a birth, a death, a christening, a journal entry, a letter or a newspaper article. If the entry is a news item, it will be transcribed immediately below. Click on photographs to enlarge in another window.

Ife and me. My sister’s foot.

Below is a letter I wrote home soon after my second daughter was born in Atlanta.

April 17, 1973

Hello Ma and Henry,

            How are you 2 doing?  The package came today – the blanket is a perfect crib fit and also quite fancy (smile).  She probably won’t use it much until this fall since she’s still sleeping in a drawer and I hope it’s warm by the time she gets to the big crib.  Do you think that crib there could be mailed or bused down here?

            Ife and Jilo are fine.  Jilo hasn’t been to school for about a week and her behavior has improved back to her normal self. I think a combination of lack of direction (on the staffs part) and not enough sleep at the school combine to make a dismal day.  I am going back to work for half day next month and Jilo will be going to school for half day and Ife will go to work with me since I can move to the empty house where nobody works mornings.  I don’t know how long they will go for this – however I am already making plans to start a small school of three over 3’s at $30/week or babysitting them but doing it like a school, so I can stay home.  I haven’t quite worked it out yet, but I’m sure with all the working parents and the eminent collapse of Jilo’s school, I can find some ready candidates.

            Ife sleeps a lot, except from about 5 to 10, during which she cries, eats, cries, etc.  It’s just when I’m trying to cook dinner and that’s a drag, but at least she’s sleeping good at night – not all night, but she’s not crying much at night. For awhile she stayed awake all night instead of the evening.

Jilo and Ife in the yard a few months later.

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For more about life for us during those times -> Cascade Rd. SW, Atlanta

N – New Bonnet for Dee Dee

A-Z Challenge 2025, African-American Genealogy & Slave Ancestry Research, Detroit, Grahams

For this year’s A to Z Challenge, I will be posting an event for that date involving someone in my family tree. Of course it will also involve the letter of the day. It may be a birth, a death, a christening, a journal entry, a letter or a newspaper article. If the entry is a news item, it will be transcribed immediately below. Click on photographs to enlarge in another window.

*You don’t have to sign in to comment. You can do so anonymously and add your name in the comment. Or you can fill out the name section only.

Doris Diane Elkins in bonnet front left, cousin Mary Jane Roberts, right front. Their mothers, Mary Vee Graham Elkins and Elizabeth Elkins Roberts are behind them.
The Detroit Tribune, Detroit, Michigan • Sat, April 22, 1944 Page 4

Sunday, four generations were represented at the christening of Doris Diane Elkins, the small daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Frank Elkins, of McDougall. The ceremony took place at the home of the baby’s maternal great grand mother, Mrs. Jennie Turner, of Harding avenue. Her paternal grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. M. C. Graham, aIso her paternal grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. Frank Elkins, Sr.; her aunts. -Misses Daisy and Alice Turner, and Mrs. Elizabeth Roberts, all were present to witness the event. The baby’s godparents. Mr. and Mrs. Jack Franklin, of Oakland, Calif., sent their godchild a beautiful bonnet for the christening.

Paternal Aunt and paternal grandparents
Doris Diane with parents, Frank and Mary Vee Elkins
Maternal grandparents, Mershell and Fannie Graham.

Doris Diane Elkins is my first cousin. Our mothers, Mary V. and Doris Graham, were sisters. My sister wondered why our mother wasn’t there. The reason was because she was married and living in San Francisco where my father was co-pastor at Fellowship Church, non-denominational.

M – My Grandmother Enumerates

A-Z Challenge 2025, African-American Genealogy & Slave Ancestry Research, Alabama

For this year’s A to Z Challenge, I will be posting an event for that date involving someone in my family tree. Of course it will also involve the letter of the day. It may be a birth, a death, a christening, a journal entry, a letter or a newspaper article. If the entry is a news item, it will be transcribed immediately below. Click on photographs to enlarge in another window.

My grandmother Fannie M. Turner was  an enumerator for the 1910 US Census in Montgomery, Alabama.  She was 22 and lived with her mother and younger sisters in Montgomery, although not in the district she enumerated.  Her grandmother Eliza Allen lived in that district. I was looking at the entry for Eliza when I first noticed that my grandmother was the enumerator.  I found a newspaper article online about the appointed census takers.

APPOINT CENSUS TAKERS

ENUMERATORS. FOR MONTGOMERY ARE NAMED.

Supervisor At Washington Approves Designations Made By Director Swanson of Second District After Examinations Are Undergone.

The directors of the census at Washington has provided additional designations by Dr. C. Swanson, the supervisor of the Second Alabama District of the following named persons to act as enumerators in the counties mentioned:

Baldwin- Stanley M. Waters, W. D. Durant, Nell G. McKenzie, Cornelius A. Gaston, Jay B. McGrew.
Conecuh- Henry W. Pruett.
Covington- S. P. Barron, Rochford S. Parks, W. O. Searcy, Will C. Grant, J. Herbert Jones, Benjamin F. Parker, Gordon M. Brown, William B. Combs, David A. Beasley, John R. Cravey, Hilary D. Childre, John F. Phillips.
Montgomery- City – Whites: Albert S. Ashley, E. F. Davis, James C. Westbrook, Leopold Loeb, Thomas Robinson, R. Brownlee Centerfit, Charles S. Spann, Louis Lyons, Edgar W. Smith, Mrs. Fannie B. Wilson, Handy H. McLemore. Thomas M. Westcott, Alto Deal, Miss Gene Finch, Frank G. Browder.
Negroes- To enumerate negro (sic) population only – Gertrude V. Wilson, Ell W. Buchannan, Fannie M. Turner, David R. Dorsey.
Montgomery county- outside city – Whites: William F. Allen, Frank McLean, William T. Davis, William Tankersley, James F. Robertson, James A. Stowers, Charles A. Goodwyn, William C. Ozier, O. P. Davis, Miss Oralee Naftel, Ansley L. Stough, Henderson H. Norman, Joseph K. McClurkin, William A. Johnson, John H. Kennedy, J. W. Martin, Thornton E. Gilmer, Thomas B. Barnett, William D. Calloway.
Wilcox county- -Leonard L. Godbold, Fair J. Bryant, John H. Malone, John W. Pharr, W. E. Dilger, D. C. Murphy, James D. McCall, H. C. Pearson, R. L. Vaughn, R. H. G. Gaines, Danuel G. Cook, Joseph R. Harper, Joseph R. Harper, J. F. Fore, Leonard W. Hardy, Arthur Lee, William A. McLean, B. F. Watts, Jr. E. F. Spencer, Emmett L. Gaston, John C. Seltzer, F. R. Albritton, Eugene E. Williams, William J. Sessions.
Wilcox county- William J. Edwards.
For a very few districts in Montgomery and Wilcox counties Anal action has not yet been taken on the selection of enumerators, but will be in time for the enumeration.

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Fannie M. Turner began work April 15, 1910 and enumerated her Aunt Abbie and her Grandmother Eliza on pg 2. She finished on April 26.  Mrs. Fannie B. Wilson (white) completed the enumeration of Montgomery, Ward 4 by counting the white residents on several pages after that.  As noted in the newspaper article, Negro enumerators could only count Negroes.  I wonder how that worked. Did my grandmother go to the door, note that they were white and tell them someone else would return to count them later? Did the neighbors alert her?  Since she was already familiar with the neighborhood, did she already know where the white people lived or did all the white residences live in the same area?

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Fannie Turner was my maternal grandmother. She managed her Uncle Victor Tulane’s grocery store in Montgomery, Alabama from the time she graduated from State Normal School until she married my grandfather in 1919.  I wish I knew the stories she could have told about that two weeks of counting the citizens in Ward 4.

L – Lowndes County Birth

A-Z Challenge 2025

For this year’s A to Z Challenge, I will be posting an event for that date involving someone in my family tree. Of course it will also involve the letter of the day. It may be a birth, a death, a christening, a journal entry, a letter or a newspaper article. If the entry is a news item, it will be transcribed immediately below. Click on photographs to enlarge in another window.

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Alonza Turner was born on Thursday, April 14, 1910 in Lowndes County, Alabama. He was the 5th child of 35 year old farmer Alonza Turner and his wife 28 year old Galvester. The family included four other children: Nellie (7), Howard (5), Eddie (4), and Willie M. (2). Galvester had birthed five children and all five were alive. According to the 1910 Census, both parents were literate. The two oldest children had attended school. They rented their land.

Page from the 1910 census with Alonza Turner and his relatives marked in red.

On the same page there are three other households of Turners. Near the top of the page baby Alonza’s grandfather lived with his second wife, Luella, and their four children. Luella was literate, Joe was not. Their two oldest children were in school. Luella had birthed five children and all were alive. The oldest was born before she married Joe and was living with her parents. They owned their farm.

Baby Alonza’s uncle Joe and his wife Emma lived next door with their their four year old granddaughter. Joe was literate. Emma was not. Emma had birthed one child and she was alive and living down the road. They rented their farm.

Next is Alonza’s family. Below them lived Joe and Emma’s daughter, Fanny and her baby daughter. Fanny was literate and owned her house. She has birthed two children and both were alive. The older one was counted up with her parents.

Alonza Turner, the father, was the brother of my great grandfather Howard Turner. I do not have any photographs of this branch of the family.