Finding Eliza

Christmas 1950

Kristin and Pearl Christmas in Springfield, Massachusetts.

Photos of my mother Doris, my aunt Mary V and their brothers Mershell and Howard Graham. My grandparents bought the house on Theodore in 1923, before my mother was born. They lived there until 1968 when they moved into a two family flat with my family. Here are some winter photos taken in the back yard.

My aunt Mary V., uncle Mershell and my mother, Doris

Doris four years old. Mary V, six years old. Mershell five years old. February 1927

Doris and Mary V in their backyard. Detroit Eastside 1929.

Doris, Mary V – 1929 Mother Fannie and baby Howard in the dining room window.

Mershell Cunningham Graham 1921-1927
D – DORIS Graham born 1923
Mary V. Graham Remembers Christmas – 1929
Baby’s First Photograph – Feb. 9, 1929

Pearl Reed Sings in Concert

This post includes both the article announcing the concert and a report written after the concert.

Sings in Concert at Simpson Chapel

The violin recital of Clarence Cameron White will be given this evening at Simpson Chapel under the direction of the Colored Y. M.C. A. Orchestra. He will be supported by the local talent.
The following program will be given:
Overture -“Northern Lights,” Y.M.C. A. Orchestra.
Violin–Hungarian Rhapsodie, Clarence Cameron White.
Solo- Dry Those Tears,” Miss Pearl D. Reed.
Piano–(a) Valse in sharp minor; (b) Polanalse in A major, Alberta J. Grubbs.
Violin-(a) ‘Tran Merci; (b) Scherzo, Clarence Cameron White.
INTERMISSION
Orchestra- The Spartan.” orchestra.
Vocal Miss Pearl D. Reed.
Readings- A. A. Taylor.
Selection- The Bird and Brook,” orchestra.

**The Indianapolis News** Indianapolis, Indiana • Sat, May 9, 1908Page 21

Clarence C. White’s Recital. The farewell appearance of. Clarence Cameron White, the colored violinist, prior to his going abroad to pursue further his study of the violin, drew a large audience to Simpson Chapel last night. Mr. White came under the auspices of the orchestra of the colored Y. M.C.A. which also contributed to the program. A pleasing feature of the program was the singing of Miss Pearl Reed. leading soprano of the Witherspoon Memorial church choir. Following is the program: Northern Lights,” Y. M. C.A. orchestra; Hungarian rhapsodie (violin), Clarence Cameron White; solo, “Oh, Dry Those Tears”, Miss Pearl D. Reed; piano, valse (a) sharp minor, (b) polonaise in A major, Mrs. Albert J. Grubbs: violin (a) Tran Merci, (b) Scherzo, Clarence Cameron White: vocal solo, “Goodbye,” Miss Pearl D. Reed: select reading, A. A. Taylor; selection, “The Bird and the Brook,” orchestra. The proceeds will be used for the purchase of a piano.

Playing the Guitar and the Piano in 1904

Homer Jarrett
230 Alleghany St. City

2700 Kenwood Ave
March 8, 1904

Homer;
Your letter was handed me at supper and don’t you know, that I was rather glad to hear from you. I did not answer your letter before, because I thought you were tired of hearing such “silly” “little” letters. You have managed nicely to keep yourself out of sight lately, since I’ve come to think of it, I think it has been about a month – don’t you?

I heard of the bad news that you had from home and Homer I send you my sympathy. Are they better now, I mean the ones that were ill?

In regards to my music, why I suppose I am getting on quite well. My tutor flatters me and tells me that I am doing “Oh, so nicely”, but I don’t believe one half of what is told me. Do you know I’ve changed from the guitar to the piano? You must think me the most changeable person Homer, but I get so tired of everything so very soon, you know.

Aren’t you tired of this stuff Homer? Well I am.

Good-bye
Pearl

****

My grandmother also sang in the church choir and at other community events.

You can see an article after the event here -> Pearl Reed Sings in Concert

My grandmother, Pearl Doris Reed, was born in Lebanon, Kentucky in 1886. She was the youngest of the eight children of A is for Anna Allen Reed. The four youngest, including Pearl, were the children of Buford Averitt, a white physician. The older children had different fathers. By 1888 Pearl’s oldest brother, George, had moved to Indianapolis Indiana to work at Van Camps cannery. The rest of the family soon followed. She graduated from high school and took music lessons. In 1903, Pearl was nineteen years old. She lived with her mother and older brothers in North Indianapolis, Indiana.

Homer Jarrett was a cousin of Minnie’s husband, James Mullins. He was born in Harris County, GA in 1882. He completed 8th grade. During the time of the letters he was moving around a lot, from Indianapolis, to Pine Bluff Arkansas to St. Louis MO and back to Indiana. He eventually moved to Boston, MA where he made his living in real estate. He never married. According to his draft records, he was short, slender, tan complexion, black hair and blue eyes, . He died in Boston in 1959 at 77.

You can see the full list of letters here -> Pearl Reed Cleage’s Letters 1903-1905

There was a technical problem with my host server that is blocking comments at the moment. It seems to be cleared up on this Sunday morning.

Knitting for Dee Dee

My mother Doris Sewing in August 1944. Unfortunately no photo of her knitting.

In 1943, my mother was 20 years old. Excited about her first niece or nephew being born that year, she took a knitting class in college where she made some little outfits. Unfortunately, I don’t have a photo of my mother knitting, so I am sharing one of her sewing.

*The Detroit Tribune* Detroit, Michigan • Sat, Jun 19, 1943 Page 5

Have You Heard?

That Doris Graham is so thrilled over the prospects of becoming an aunt in the summer, that she, and not the prospective mama (Merry Vee Graham Elkins) is doing the knitting? Doris took a special course in knitting at Wayne last semester and is incorporating her learnings in an array of the dantiest, laciest tiny garments one could wish for.

May 1943 Detroit. Mershell Graham, Bud Elkins, Fannie Graham, Mary Vee Graham Elkins

“Dad – Bud – Mother – ? M Vee” “May 1943”

May 1943. “DD” on the way born 9/7/1943. Same date as Howard – his 9/7/28

Fannie Turner Graham, my grandmother, wrote this on the back of the photograph. Howard was her youngest child. He was born on the same day but 15 years earlier, as her first grandchild, Dee Dee. Howard died when he was only three. You can read about him here -> N – NINETEEN TWENTY EIGHT Howard Graham was born

I think Dee Dee is wearing a little knitted top here. Maybe from her Aunt Doris.

A Finger and a Sail Boat

Setting sail on Lake Idlewild. My mother the photographer’s finger.

Henry is taking me out on Lake Idlewild in the little sailboat. It was used to practice the skills needed to sail the big sailboat on the Detroit River. You can read about that boat here -> Sailing Log Detroit River – 1970

Thanksgiving 1963

Click to enlarge photos from that day. Photos by my uncle Henry Cleage.

Thanksgiving Grahams 1963 — My grandfather cutting the turkey. Seventeen year old me on the left. My mother on the right.

It was Thanksgiving at my Graham Grandparents house in 1963, East side Detroit. My grandfather cuts the turkey. My mother sits on the right. I am on the left, my sister next to me. I wonder where my Aunt Mary Vee and my cousins were? Usually there were four more around the table. How we all fit I do not know, but we did. The house is gone now. Everybody in this photo except my sister and I are dead. We are older than my grandparents were.

Four generations gathered around dining room table in 1963 for Thanksgiving dinner. There was turkey with cornbread dressing cooked by my grandfather. There was white rice, cranberry jelly, green beans, corn pudding and sweet potatoes. There was my grandmother’s finely chopped green salad and her homemade biscuits with butter and with a relish plate holding olives, sweet pickles and carrot sticks.

One thing there wasn’t, was talk about the old days. My grandparents were born in 1888. My grandmother was born Fannie Turner in Lowndes County, Alabama. My grandfather was born Mershell Graham in Elmore County, Alabama. They met and married in Montgomery. My great great Aunt Abbie was born in 1877 in Montgomery, Alabama and was the second to youngest child of Dock and Eliza Allen.

Unfortunately, I can’t go back to 1963 and sit around the table and steer the conversation around to who was where and when and how and why. Did they celebrate Thanksgiving growing up? What did they have for dinner? Who was there? I’d ask Poppy, where he was in 1900? Where were his parents? and what happened to his older brothers? I wish I could hear them tell their stories tomorrow.

Zoo Trip 1959

At the end of each summer my sister, cousins, mother, aunt and grandfather Poppy took a trip to the Detroit Zoo. We are looking at the Horace H. Rackham Memorial Fountain, located in the middle of the zoo. Every year we took photos there.

Grahams — Marilyn in front. Me, Barbara, Pearl with camera, Dee Dee. Friend Connie and my mother in back.

In 1959 Dee Dee was almost 17 and too cool. I’m amazed she still accompanied us to the zoo. It must have been a very important part of our year. I was almost 13 and not at all cool. That expression on my face is one I recognize from other photos through the years, unfortunately. I would say the sun is in my eyes but it doesn’t seem to be bothering anybody else. And why am I wearing that skimpy outfit? Connie and my mother are wearing the hats my mother bought for Pearl and me. White sailor hats were the rage for awhile. Unfortunately, these were the cheap version and did not look like the popular ones. I don’t think we ever wore them. If I had, maybe I wouldn’t have been squinting at the camera.

Mershall Graham zoo — Poppy walking on that 1959 zoo trip.

That summer of 1959 we moved from our rented flat on Calvert into our very own house on Oregon. I turned 13 on August 30 and started 8th grade at McMichael Junior High School that fall.

Other Detroit zoo posts
Our Yearly Trip to the Zoo
Jo Mendi
Marilyn Makes a Trunk – 1956

Blanche, Theresa and Thomas Averette

Theresa, Blanche/Celeste and Thomas Reed/Averit on Theresa’s birthday. 1919, Indianapolis, IN

Although I haven’t participated in Sepia Saturday for a long time, when I saw the prompt for today I thought of the above photo, which I have never shared on Sepia Saturday and thought it was a good match. So, here I am.

When Hugh Reed’s second daughter was born, she was named after his baby sister, my grandmother. When I found the birth certificate online, I was surprised to find that the baby originally had my grandmother’s full name, Pearl Doris. Later, she was called Theresa Pearl. Did the parents decide on Theresa later because it sounded more “posh”? I will never know.

"Pearl Cleage and baby Albert" — Pearl Reed Cleage and baby Albert. 1911 Indianapolis, IN

Memories of the 1967 Detroit Rebellion

Memories of the 1967 Detroit Riot

James E. Williams

I interviewed my husband, James E. Williams, about his memories of the Detroit riot of 1967. I edited out most of my questions in the transcription below for easier reading.

**James Williams** at the Inner City Voice Office 1967

Hello, this is Akbar Lee, James Williams sitting here July 24, 2017 talking about the rebellion in Detroit, 1967, July 23. I don’t exactly recall how I first heard about it. I remember it was a Sunday morning. What I do remember is being with the Inner City Voice Newspaper. We had just gotten press cards, press passes from the Detroit police and myself and another person from the newspaper, were out on the street. It must have been about 10 o’clock Sunday morning. I had my press card in my hand, showed it to a policeman, I was on 12^th street, about Blaine, near where the riot began. I was telling the photographer to take pictures (of what?) of the people in the street and the police in the street. They were milling around. The police came driving around in cars there was maybe 4 police in each car, would drive up 12^th street and turn on one of the side streets and turn around

They went around and then they went around again there were about 3 or 4 cars. There were about 12 or 16 police. About 75 people. They were everywhere. I don’t think anybody was throwing bottles at the police. Stores had been broken into. I just remember people, men and women. So, the cops, they stopped, they jumped out of their cars with their clubs drawn running fast and started beating people that were watching.

One policeman came up toward me and I showed him my press pass, police press pass and he knocked it out of my hand and chased me up on a porch on Blaine, as I recall. And Maybe he knocked it out of my hand on 12^th street and I ran, yeah to get away. He hit me in the head and knocked it out of my hand. I showed it to him and he knocked it out of my hand, hit me upside the head. I ran off the street. As a matter of fact, he brought it up to me and said, “This is yours.” I don’t know if it was the same policeman. I just ran up on the porch, the police were like on the adjacent street. They were just beating people back off the street. They wanted people off the street I assume and that’s what they got.

That’s my first memory, being beat off the street with my police pass that was worth nothing. It was an eye opener, so to speak. I expected they would back right down since the police chief had signed it. It was 1967 so I would be 22.

I was with another person from the inner city voice. Kurt Slaughter. He was also working with the newspaper. The Inner City Voice was a newspaper that hadn’t come out with its first issue, but it was getting ready to. We were gathering news, we thought. I don’t recall Kurt being hit. He had a camera because I thought I was telling him to take this picture, take that picture.

(Did he get a photo of you getting hit?) I never saw it. Kurt got away. I don’t remember much more after that day. Maybe I had a concussion.

Anyway, I was living at 1111 W. Canfield, Jefferies projects, in the student housing part of it. That was on the 23^rd. I think that I was out on the street after getting hit in the head just observing people moving around. I don’t have much recollection of anything else, just the being beat in the head and my press card not being worth a damn.

Next thing I remember is the army coming, being in the streets. That was later in the week. And what I remember next is…. I think that what happened after being hit in the head I left the scene and didn’t go back. Went home, put ice on my head, tended my wound and had a fear of going back out there. However, what I can remember is, being a part… well, I had a feeling that this was something different, that people were fighting, that it was really going to be us against them, But it wasn’t real, my feeling. What I thought was us, the people rising up against the power of the police, was really the police using their power to push us back. There was burning, there was looting, but the police were still in control of the streets, so it seemed to me.

I remember at night laying in the bed thinking this is the revolution. I could hear gunshots tatatatatat it was quite an experience to live through. A lot of people didn’t make it through, 43 people were killed.

My fear was the police, getting shot, getting beat. I could hear those machine guns going at night. My neighbors didn’t have any machine guns. I must have been up and about during the daytime. The area where I lived on Wayne’s campus, I don’t remember a lot of police there. I had to go back up to 12^th street, but the rioting was taking place in more places than just 12^th street.

I remember somehow or another. I got the opportunity to go to Belle Isle where they had turned it into a temporary prison and interview some people that were being held. This was because I worked with a group of black social workers and they were going in to check the conditions of the people on Belle Isle because Belle Isle was not a prison but they had made it into a prison. We went inside buildings where the people were, in buildings. In my mind it was like a concentration camp, but I’m sure it wasn’t that bad, but for some reason, this was at night time too.

There was a curfew so I remember being in a police car driving down the street to wherever we were meeting, the meeting of the group of people they were going to select to go on Belle Isle and interview the people. (How did they pick you up? Were there other people in the car with you?) That’s not at all clear to me. I do remember being in a meeting with people and they were selecting us. And everybody didn’t get to go. They were asking questions like “What have you heard?” and some people were saying that people were being killed and they had been stuck in cages with monkeys and those people didn’t pick. Whoever those people were. I think it was the Justice Department but I’m not sure. I was caught up in the excitement of it all.

I don’t remember hardly anything because so much was happening, but anyway it went on for five days. It was almost like, they talked about after the soldiers got there, the army came, they were talking about going door to door to people’s houses and if they didn’t have recites for stuff in their house they were going be arrested and the stuff taken. It appeared there was nothing to stop the police from doing whatever they wanted. (Nobody keeps recites for everything). That’s true but it doesn’t matter if they come busting in your house and say this is looted. I know from my experience with my press pass. I do not believe that they did that and once they drank the bottle they felt pretty loose.

So, I lived on Canfield and Lodge Freeway. About the 3^rd day I can remember going out to see what was happening. We were in the house trying to be protected from it. Not certain if Rosie was still there. Kathy would have been there. There were other people in the building that we knew, Edna, John Watson. Anyway, going out, I don’t really remember too clearly, just me going out. Milling in the crowd, a whole group of people taking stuff out of a store on Trumbull, which wasn’t very far. I can’t imagine this store that was selling this furniture but… The police were no place to be seen and people were just taking stuff and I got caught up in the moment and I got the table and put it in the front room and not really but probably in the back of my mind thinking of that beating. (Did you scratch it up?). No, no I probably polished it. The police never came. I never saw the police in the building.

The National Guard was there first and then the army came. They drove around everywhere. I don’t remember them going though the projects. Mostly I remember being out at night, going with observers. I don’t remember anything other then there was nobody out there but police. Whoever was the observers.

They had a zoo building on belle isle? And that’s where they were putting people. I don’t know what they did with those animals.

I don’t remember much else about the action part. Except for hearing the machine guns at night, hearing sirens all the time. I guess I wasn’t really out in it other than that first day when I got hit, and then when I got the table. I might have gone out one more day, but I think I was traumatized a bit about being out there with my police pass. So we just stayed in. I can’t really recall how I was communicating or who I was communicating with. The phones were working and I’m sure I was talking to people. The people I was working with on the newspaper, I eventually became pretty distant from them, but at the time we must have been going to the newspaper office which was on Warren, a little ways away, across the campus, to the other side of the campus. Once the newspaper became the organ of the League of Revolutionary Black Workers, the voice of today, it didn’t last long. Eventually the Algiers Motel Incident, but I think that came out after. What did happen, the inner city voice had worked out a speaking engagement for Rapp Brown with the local Friends of SNCC to bring Rapp Brown as a speaker, as a fundraiser for the newspaper. We had some problems with the location we ended up using the Dexter Theater, but I think we had tried to use some other spot first. How we ended up using the Dexter Theater. What I remember is that SNNC made off with the money, which they were known to do, I don’t know if the voice got any of that money. That probably happened a week later.

My Detroit Rebellion Journal – 1967
Riot or Rebellion? July 23, 1967
Rebellions Create Strange Leaders – By Jaramogi Abebe Agyeman
“D” is for Dexter