Category Archives: Christmas

Christmas Candy

December 8, 2015Christmas, Grahams#Doris Graham CleageKristin

Aunt Daisy took us downtown to the show every summer and to Saunders for ice cream afterward. And I always ended up with a splitting headache. Too much high living I guess. She and Alice would buy us dainty, expensive little dresses from Siegel’s or Himllhoch’s. They all went to church every Sunday at Plymouth Congregational. Daisy always gave us beautiful tins of gorgeous Christmas candy, that white kind filled with gooey black walnut stuff, those gooey raspberry kind and those hard, pink kind with a nut inside, also chocolates, of course!

doris_mv_fannie_howard_window — Doris and Mary Virginia Graham. Their mother Fannie and baby brother Howard are looking out of the window.

See Mary Virginia’s Christmas Memories here Mary V. Graham Elkins Remembers Christmas

Santa On The IRT

December 7, 2015Advent Calendar, ChristmasKristin

I wrote this on February 8, 1999

It all happened last Christmas Eve. I’d had a long, hard day working at the restaurant and I just wanted to get home and soak my tired dogs. That’s what my father always said when he came home from work. “Whew! My dogs are killin’ me!” he’d say. Then he’d take off his shoes, plop down in his favorite chair and fall asleep reading the paper until dinner time.

But I didn’t start this to tell you about my feet. I wrote this to tell you about meeting Santa on the subway. First I thought it was just some joker on his way to a Xmas party. I looked the other way when he came over and started looking at the IRT map. I didn’t want to get into a big conversation about nothing, but some guy hollers out “Hey, Santa, hope you don’t lose your way when you’re looking for my house.” Course that got a big laugh. Until he turned around and said “Fellows, this is no laughing matter. I’ve lost my map of NYC. The one that marks the houses I’ve got to go to and who’s been naughty and nice. You could have heard a pin drop in there.

(This first appeared on my other blog Ruff Draft)

Blog Caroling – Silent Night

December 22, 2014Christmas#blog carolingKristin

It’s been hard for me to get into the Christmas spirit this year. Everyday seems to bring some new report of violence, both here and around the world. This years offering for Footnote Maven’s Blog Caroling is Silent Night sung by Sweet Honey in the Rock. It combines a version of the carol combined with pictures of the demonstrations that have swept the nation after the police actions in Ferguson, MO and New York. May next Christmas find us closer to true Justice for all in this country and Peace around the world.

Carol Of The Bells – Blog Caroling 2013

December 22, 2013Christmas#blog carolingKristin

For the past several years I have done We Three Kings as my carol for the Blog Caroling event hosted annually by footnote Maven. I was looking for something different and found this version of Carol of the Bells. You can find a short history at Carol of the Bells – Wikipedia.

Carol of the Bells

Christmas is here, bringing good cheer
To young and old, meek and the bold
Ding, dong, ding, dong, that is their song,
With joyful ring, all caroling
One seems to hear words of good cheer
From everywhere, filling the air
Oh!, how they pound, raising the sound
O’er hill and dale, telling their tale

Gaily they ring, while people sing
Songs of good cheer, Christmas is here!
Merry, merry, merry, merry, merry Christmas!
Merry, merry, merry, merry, merry Christmas!

On, on they send, on without end
Their joyful tone to every home
Hark! How the bells, sweet silver bells
All seem to say, “Throw cares away.”
Christmas is here, bringing good cheer
To young and old, meek and the bold
Ding, dong, ding, dong, that is their song
With joyful ring, all caroling.
One seems to hear words of good cheer
From everywhere, filling the air
O, how they pound, raising the sound
O’er hill and dale, telling their tale

Gaily they ring, while people sing
Songs of good cheer, Christmas is here!
Merry, merry, merry, merry, merry Christmas!
Merry, merry, merry, merry, merry Christmas!

On, on they send, on without end
Their joyful tone to every home.
Ding dong ding dong…

Merry Christmas – 1920

December 21, 2013Christmas, Grahams, sepia saturdayKristin

This is another card from the collection of my maternal grandparents, Mershell and Fannie Graham. Unfortunately there is no name and no address so I have no way to find out who she is. Because it is dated 1920, the first Christmas after their marriage in 1919, I believe she was an old friend from Montgomery, Alabama sending them a card in their new home in Detroit. I will echo their unnamed friend by saying “Merry Xmas!”

For more Sepia Merry Christmas', CLICK! — For more Sepia Merry Christmas’, CLICK!

“A Sumptuous Christmas Dinner”

December 19, 2013Allen, ChristmasEdward McCallKristin

montgomery_jail — Photo from “Montgomery, the Capital City of Alabama”

Edward McCall was the husband of my great grandmother’s oldest sister, Mary Allen McCall. He worked as cook at the City Jail for 30 years, according to the article below. He was also listed as “turnkey” at the jail in several censuses. Edward’s wife, Mary was a talented seamstress, a skill she learned from her mother, Eliza (who I named this blog after).

They were the parents of 7 children. Six of them survived to adulthood. One of their sons, James Edward McCall was a blind poet and publisher first in Montgomery and later in Detroit. Their other children were Annabelle McCall Martin, Leon Roscoe McCall, William Gladstone McCall (who died as an infant), Alma Otilla McCall Howard and Jeanette McCall McEwen.

Edward McCall died in Montgomery, Alabama on February 2, 1920 and is buried there in Lincoln Cemetery. For many years this cemetery was horribly neglected and vandalized. Several years ago the Lincoln Cemetery Rehabilitation Authority was formed and has been working to clean it up and put the graves in order. I hear that it is in much better shape.

Only Fifteen Will Enjoy the Hospitality of the City on Christmas Day

Twenty-six city prisoners whose sentences originally ranged from thirty days to six months, and who had a balance of time of from one to thirty days yet to serve, were given their liberty Saturday at noon as a Christmas present, upon an order to Chief Taylor of the Police Department from Mayor W. A. Gunter, Jr., this being, the annual custom in vogue for a number of years in Montgomery with reference to the city’s prisoners.

The release of the twenty-six left a remaining number of twelve, which together with three convictions at the Saturday session of the Recorders Court, who were unable to pay their fines, aggregate fifteen who will be given holiday Monday and a sumptuous Christmas dinner, which is being prepared today by Ed McCall, the negro (sic) who for thirty years has served as chef at police headquarters.

The dinner will be served in the regular dining room at headquarters and will consist in a menu of camp stew, bread, cakes, fruits, coffee and other good and tasty articles of substantial foods.

“The Star and The Stable” Dec. 11, 1966

December 18, 2013Christmas, Cleages, Detroit, Sermon Notes#Bulletin, #SermonKristin

As Christmas approaches, I remember my father’s sermons from that time of year. Here is the Sunday Bulletin for Sunday, December 11, 1966, the sermon notes, a flyer for an evening program held the same day and one of the songs sung by the Choir that day at Central United Church of Christ, Detroit. And right beneath this paragraph, the audio of the actual sermon.

The Star and the stable. The sermon preached.

Sermon – Advent 1966
2nd Sermon of Advent 1966
The Star and The Stable – Sermon Notes – Dec. 11, 1966
A Christ to Carol – Christmas Sermon Notes Dec 22 196

Christmas Memories

December 17, 2013Christmas, Family History Writing Challenge#Doris Graham Cleage, #Gladys Cleage Evans, #Henry Cleage, #Linda Williams Nance, #Maxine Williams AndersonKristin

Here are some memories from a newsletter my family put out from 1990 to about 1994. Daughter Ayanna did all the drawings. I added one new memory that my sister-in-law Jocelyn sent me in December, 2013.

Black Santa Claus – 1968

December 15, 2013ChristmasKristin

The Santa that my mother put under the tree in 1968, my last Christmas at home.

Merrie Christmas and Happy New Year

December 14, 2013Christmas, Grahams, Investigations, Montgomery AlabamaKristin

A Christmas card from my Grandparent’s ( Mershell and Fannie Graham) collection, date unknown. I read on a post by Pauline on Family History Across the Seas about the people who sent Christmas Cards. It started me thinking about the cards I had from my grandparents collection with photographs of people I only knew were friends of the family, but nothing else about them. I wondered what I could find out. I picked this one out because, unlike some of the others, it had a name and a street address, although there was no date and no city. My grandparents lived in Montgomery, AL before moving to Detroit in 1919, so I started there. Here is what I learned from the census and Montgomery Directory about Addie Smith.

Addie Smith "Ma Smith" — Addie Smith “Ma Smith” is written on the shingles near her face level.

"Merrie chtsmas and happy New Year. Your Addie Smith 105 Hutchinson St." — “Merrie Christmas and happy New Year. Addie Smith 105 Hutchinson St.” My mother wrote “Don’t know date- friend”

Addie was born in 1869 in South Carolina to parents also born in South Carolina. In 1888, (the year my grandmother was born), Addie married Fountain Smith, a laborer about 14 years her senior. This was her first marriage. Fountain may have been married before. They had no children.

By 1906 Fountain and Addie were living at 105 Hutchinson Street in Montgomery. She would live in this rented house for the rest of her life. A Fountain Smith filed for bankruptcy in 1906. Over the years Addie Smith worked as a char woman/janitress in the Post Office. She may have also worked in that capacity in other public buildings.

At 53 years old, on October 26 in 1922, Addie Smith died. She is buried in Oakwood Cemetery in Montgomery. Fountain lived another 8 years, dying on November 3, 1930. He would have been about 62. Because Addie died in 1922 and my grandparents moved to Detroit in 1919, I am guessing that this card was sent in 1920.

Fannie and Mershell soon after their marriage in 1919. — My grandparents Fannie and Mershell Graham soon after their marriage in 1919.

Looking at a map of the 4th Ward in Montgomery in I found that Hutchinson street no longer had houses below #800, However, my great Uncle Victor Tulane had a grocery store at Ripley and High street. My grandmother Fannie managed the store for a number of years before her marriage. This store would have been several blocks from Addie and Fountain Smith’s house. I am supposing that this is how they met.

Finding Eliza