In my fourteenth post for the April A-Z Challenge, I am going to share a Nostalgic interview I did with my Uncle Henry Cleage in 1994. I’ve done several posts about the Freedom Now Party before. At that time I didn’t know how to embed the actual audio interview. I figured it out yesterday and so, here it is!
I wish my interviewing skills had been better when I recorded this. Obvious things like, turn off the radio and go to a quiet room. I edited out as much of the extraneous noise as I could. Henry and I were sitting in the living room of my house in Idlewild, MI. You can hear the sounds of the kids getting dinner on the table and hollering at the dog in the background. In 1994 my youngest 4 were all at home and we were homeschooling. Henry lived about 4 miles away and often had dinner with us.
An interview with Henry Cleage about the Michigan Freedom Now Party.
This is my thirteenth post for the April A-Z Challenge. M is for music, and in this case, the music of my second cousin, Hubert Averette. We never knew each other because my grandmother, Pearl’s, and her brother, Hugh’s families were out of contact for over 80 years. When Hubert’s son, Alex let me know that there was a 45 with two songs that his father both wrote and sang, available on Ebay, I decided to buy it. My sister and I listened to it on her record player and enjoyed it.
Hubert was a teacher by profession. Although his love of music didn’t lead to a musical career, he didn’t let that stop him from performing and enjoying music. His son Alex described the making of the record and his father’s love of music to me and I want to share the story in his own words. At the end of the post, you can listen to both of the songs.
“Rock Star” photo of Hubert Averette wearing a silver lame shirt sewed by wife, Janice, from his own design. It was used as the cover photo for the record.
My Dad was a prolific songwriter and singer. He even tried a shot at becoming a rock star in the early ’70s. He could sing just like Elvis and he was a huge fan but, on those two songs, ‘Another Way’ and ‘There’s a Time and a Place for Everything’, he was using his own singing voice. He played piano and guitar, but not on that record. The band that provided musical accompaniment and backup vocals on my Dad’s record was only hired for the record. My father wrote the two songs on the 45. He had picked those out from 24+ songs he had written up to 1970.
The band that backed up Dad at the nursing homes and concert halls was none other than our family. We sang in nursing homes for free, music halls for donations in late ’77 and raised a total of $1,000 for the heart fund research by doing it. Dad did vocals and guitar, Mom played the piano, I played the drums, and my sister played the rhythm sticks and the xylophone. We had such fun and enjoyment doing this together as a family; my sister and I cherish these memories, as well as many others growing up. My Mom and Dad were such wonderful loving parents and friends to us. My Mother was such a good caring person and my father was such a brilliant, talented man, the world missed out on it, but our family didn’t, that’s for sure!
This is the twelfth post in the April A-Z Challenge and also in response to the prompt for Sepia Saturday #172. I am posting about a long ago march held in Detroit in 1942. I remembered this photograph in my Cleage family collection after seeing the post on Tony Zimnoch’s blog, The Last Living Rose, which he did in response to Sepia Saturday and the death of Margaret Thatcher.
There is no information written on the photo about when or where it was taken. When I first looked at this photo, I thought that the signs were saying house war workers, as in people who worked in the house. I soon realized the march was about housing for war workers, after reading several articles about the housing shortage in Detroit during World II.
March in Detroit in support of housing black workers in the newly built Sojourner Truth Homes during WW 2.
When thousands of Southern workers, black and white, flooded into Detroit to take jobs in the auto industry, they found a city with both highly segregated housing and a lack of housing. Most African Americans were crowded into a 30 block area, with inadequate housing, and rates of pneumonia and tuberculous that were much higher than those for whites.
In 1941, the Federal Housing Commission authorized the building of a housing development for black workers. It was to be called the Sojourner Truth Homes after the abolitionist and former slave, Sojourner Truth. They decided to place it in a white neighborhood. The residents were not happy. They were even angrier when they found that the FHA would no longer guarantee loans to houses near the Sojourner Homes. White reaction caused the Federal Housing Commission to change it’s mind and announce Sojourner Homes would be a white housing project. The idea of an integrated project never entered anyone’s mind, as far as I can tell. Detroit Mayor Jefferies spoke out on the side of keeping the project black. That is why, in the march above, banners say, “Support the Mayor”.
In January, after the housing was completed and black families were preparing to move in, over 700 white men turned out to bar the way. They blocked cars, they stoned vehicles and they refused to let the people move in. The police were unable or unwilling to stop it. Meanwhile, back in the black community, word came and black men came to support the people moving in. A riot ensued and over 200 people were arrested, almost all of them black, although the violence had largely been on the white side.
In February, 1942 Federal troops were called out to make sure black residents were able to move in. Eventually 168 black families lived there. The violence was over for the time being.
Flyer to protest the decision to make the Sojourner Truth Homes for white workers and exclude black workers.A flyer asking white men to come out and keep black people from moving into the Sojourner Truth Homes.From Life Magazine – March 16, 1942.
A short video about the Sojourner Truth Homes Riot.
This is the eleventh post in the April A-Z Challenge. I am posting a painting that I did in kindergarten. The newspaper I painted on is dated Sunday, September 30, 1951. It is a want ad page from the Detroit News. A page full of bungalows for sale, not in my neighborhood, but further out in the suburbs.
There are two things that I remember clearly about kindergarten. I remember walking, as a class, down the block to the playground and playing in the sandbox with several other children. I remember painting on the easel on newspapers every chance I had. The teacher spoke to my mother about it because she was concerned that I didn’t try other things. My mother told her that I could do everything else they had in the classroom at home.
You can read about my life as a kindergartener in the post A is for Atkinson, from the Family History Through the Alphabet Challenge.
This is the tenth post in the April A-Z Challenge. I am going to write about what I know about Jacob Graham. I had planned to write about family Jewelry but when I looked at the locket below and saw the initials were J.H.G. I started thinking about Jacob Graham again. I don’t believe the locket was his because men don’t wear lockets. I wonder who it belonged to and who the two women are. But, that isn’t today’s question.
Several years after my mother’s death, I found a cigar box full of unidentified things – pocket watches, big buttons, lockets. The locket in the picture above had the note inside saying “? In locket in Daddy’s things”. I don’t know who the women are. The initials on the front seem to be J.H.G. My grandfather’s name was Mershell C. Graham. In the box was a small New Testament inscribed to Jacob Graham.
The Little New Testament
“Given to Jack Graham 1913. Jacob Graham was born Aug 18 – 1892. Died June 30 1913.”
“Elias Hopkins presented to him by his brother + sister in law James + Elizabeth Canfield July 4th 1875 Youngstown Ohio”
When I read these words in the small New Testement, packed away in a small box of my grandfather, Mershall Graham’s things, I wondered who Jacob Graham, Elias Hopkins and James and Elizabeth Canfield were and how they were related to my grandfather?
My Grandfather – A Mystery
My grandfather is a mystery. From his delayed birth certificate I learned that his parents were Mary Jackson and William Graham and that he was the forth child born about 1888 in Coosada Station, Elmore County, Alabama. From my mother I heard that he had an older brother named William who went west and that he had a sister named Annie who had several children.
1900 and 1910 Censuses
In 1900, Jacob Graham was ten years old and living with a 60 year old widower named Zacharia, who is identified as his father, and two siblings, Abraham and Annie. All of the children were attending school. There is no William and no Mershell in the household. I cannot find my grandfather in 1900.
In 1910, I couldn’t find Zacharia or Jacob. Annie was a widow with three children working as a servant for Oscar and Emma Barron and still in Elmore County. Abraham was living in Nashville, Tennessee. My grandfather, Mershell, was working on the railroad .
Jacob’s Death Certificate
death Certificate for Jacob Graham
On Jacob’s death certificate, I found that he died in June, 1913 of tuberculosis at the Fresh Air Camp in Montgomery County. Unfortunately, no parents names were listed. The Fresh Air Camp was founded in 1911 by the Montgomery Anti-tuberculosis League. They held regular 2 week sessions during the summer for women, children and men to try and build them up so they wouldn’t get TB. The leading cause of death in Alabama in the late 1800s, early 1900s was tuberculous. There were efforts all over the state to fight the disease. The Fresh Air Camp was one of them.
Elias Hopkins and James Canfield
Elias Hopkins and James Canfield were both born in Wales. They both lived in Youngstown Ohio when the 1870 census was taken. James Canfield continued to live in Youngstown for the rest of his life. Elias Hopkins went to Australia. His son, Percy Isiah Hopkins was born there. By 1900 the family had returned to the US and was living in Jefferson County, Alabama. In 1910 both Elias, who was a contractor and Percy, who was a physcian, were living in Dothan, Alabama, about 108 miles from Montgomery. Dr. Percy Hopkins was associated with Frazier-Ellis Hospital in Dothan, which did care for some TB patients. He often traveled some distance to see patients. Perhaps he spent some time at the Fresh Air Camp, met Jacob Graham and passed the little book on to him.
A Question
A question for another day is – How did my grandfather get the book from Jacob? Were they siblings? Sounds like a question for Q(uestion) or S(ibling) to me.
This is my ninth post for the April A-Z Challenge. Today’s topic is inventions in the family tree. There are 6 people in the tree with patents for their inventions. Thomas P. Averette, Beauford Averette, M. Bennette Shaffer and Paco Flores are in Hugh Reed Averette’s line. Blair Hugh Evans is in my Albert Cleage/Pearl Reed line. C. Eric Fonville married into the Sarah Reed Busby line. All the inventors are from the Reed line. There is one patent for each below. They are arranged from newest to oldest. Some have more than one.
This is my eighth post for the April A-Z Challenge. I am going to write about my Great Uncle Henry William Cleage. He was born about 1877, in Louden County, Tennessee, the third child of Louis and Celia (Rice) Cleage. The family moved to Athens where he attended Athens Academy, which was organized by northern Presbyterian missionaries. His parents divorced before 1889, when Celia married Roger Sherman.
Henry W. Cleage
is a native of Athens. He entered and finished the course of the Athens Academy under Rev. Cook’s administration. He then attended Knoxville College. His teaching one year at Riceville gave him his first ideas of the practical side of the profession n which he is now engaged. At present he is a member of the corps of instructors of the Academy of Athens.
Mrs. Minnie B. Cleage
is not in the profession now, but she finished the course at the Academy of Athens, and was a student at Knoxville several years. She is now the wife of Henry W. Cleage.
From an unidentified Athens, TN newspaper 1900-1901.
The former 910, now 914 Fayette.
In 1900 Henry married his first wife Minnie B. Loving, August 20, 1900. His son, Richard Henry Cleage was born the following year. Minnie died between 1901 and 1905 and we find Henry Cleage living in Indianapolis, IN with his older brother, Jacob and Jacob’s wife. Richard stayed in Athens, TN with his grandmother.
Henry worked at the post office during most of the time he lived in Indianapolis. He and his brothers Jacob, his brother’s wife and his younger brother, Albert, shared the house at 910 Fayette for years until they younger men married and moved.
In 1918 Henry married his second wife, Ola Mae Adams. He met her while he was a postman and she was living there with her sister. They were married in her hometown, Danville, KY. and took a trip through Michigan after the wedding. His younger brother, Albert was married and living in Detroit, MI by that time.
While in Indianapolis, Henry Cleage was active in the founding of Witherspoon United Presbyterian Church and the colored Y.M.C.A.
Witherspoon Presbyterian Church. Henry Cleage is in the center back row, 7 from the right. His brothers are to the right of him. My grandmother, Pearl is 3rd from the right. Taken in 1909 in Indianapolis, IN.
His daughter, Geraldine, remembers her father fondly “He was a very loving, caring and giving person and a devoted family man, not only to his family but also his siblings families.”
His nephew, also named Henry Cleage, remembered “When I was at the Post Office and would get into trouble, he’d get me out. He was very righteous.”
When the Cleage Brothers Corporation opened a grocery store in Detroit, Henry Cleage managed it during it’s short life.
Henry Cleage and family plus two family friends. About 1928. Front, seated is his mother, Celia Rice Cleage Sherman. Behind her are daughters Ruth and Geraldine. In the back row we have the unidentified friends on each end with Henry W. Cleage and his wife, Ola Mae. They are in front of their house at 6315 Stanford, Ave. Old West Side, Detroit.
I can’t believe I didn’t write up Uncle Henry’s family for the 1940 census. I will have to remedy that later and for now we will leave Henry William Cleage and his family in 1928.
You can read more about Henry William Cleage in these posts:
This is my seventh post for the April A-Z Challenge. I am going to write about my grandmothers and Good Housekeeping magazine’s October, 1912 issue about their “Composite Reader”. I read a post over at Shery’s blog, A Hundred Years Ago, this morning. It got me thinking about my grandmothers and also wondering what the rest of the article said. I found it in the Cornell University Home Economics Archive. Some other articles in the magazine were:
The Woman of the Future by Thomas A. Edison: About the wonders that electricity will bring to women and final enable them to be raised up to the level of the superior male mind because their housework will be negligible and actually engineering.
Mirandy on the Love Test by Dorothy Dix: An article written in what is supposed to be the dialect of a black woman, gives advice. I could not get through the whole article for being irritated.
Practical Eugenics – letters responding to an earlier article which I could not find. Mostly talking about stopping the birth of “imperfect” children or to stop children from being born to “imperfect” parents.
The Ideal Suburban Home of the Near Future: by Sarah Louise Arnold, talks about ideas for communal apartment living that may come before moving to that ideal small house in the suburbs.
Click to enlarge for reading.
Some of these articles reminded me of a book my grandmother Fannie had called “Ideal Home Life” which was written in 1909. There were article in The Indianapolis Recorder written during that time that also talked about simplified and gracious living. Instead of eugenics, they concentrated on “uplift” and had articles about ways to teach those who didn’t know the proper way to keep house and raise children, how to do it.
What were my grandmother’s doing at this time?
Pearl Reed Cleage and baby Albert. 1911 Indianapolis, IN
Fannie Turner before marriage – 1909.
Pearl Reed Cleage was born in Lebanon, KY in 1884. In October of 1912, she was 28 had been married for almost two years to Albert B. Cleage Sr. Her mother, Anna Allen Reed, died the previous year. Pearl had one son (my father) who was about 17 months old. They lived in Kalamazoo, MI where my grandfather had opened a medical practice. While they lived in Indianapolis, IN, my grandmother’s name appeared in the newspaper quite often for singing at church and civic events. I found no such articles in the Kalamazoo papers. Her growing family probably put an end to that. I hope she was still able to sing in her church choir. My Uncle Louis was born in August of 1913.
Fannie Turner Graham was born in 1888 in Hayneville, AL and was 24 years old in 1913. She moved to Montgomery with her mother and sister when she was four and was still living there in 1912 with her mother and two sisters. She was managing her Uncle Victor Tulane’s grocery store. In 1911 she was a member of the Progressive Twelve Club. They seem to gather for sewing and socialization. She attended First Congregational Church services with her family. It wouldn’t be until 1919 that she married my grandfather, Mershell Graham.
This postcard was written to my grandmother, Pearl Reed, after a visit to two of her sisters in Benton Harbor, MI in 1909. Pearl was 23 and her niece was about 15. I wonder why she chose a picture of the Ohio Penitentiary.
Dear Pearl, I am glad you got home and I worst (sic) you were here know (sic). Margaret Busby
Miss Pearl Reed 2730 Kenwood Indianapolis, Indiana
I didn’t have any castles in my photo stash, but this morning I remembered this postcard of the Ohio Penitentiary that my grandmother Pearl’s niece sent to her in 1909. Surrounded by stone walls, like the castle below, it is my entry for Sepia Saturday 171. I did post this in 2010 but I don’t think anyone ever saw it, so here it is again. The Penitentiary was demolished in 1998. To see photos of then and now – including a photograph that shows a little tower – go to Old Ohio Penitentiary.
This is my sixth post for the April A-Z Challenge. I am going to post about my fiercely creative family members. After I wrote about the medical people in the family, I started thinking about the writers, musicians, singers, dancers and other creative people that we have in the family.
The problem began as I pulled photos. With doctors, nurses, dentists and pharmacists it is straight forward – they study and then they practice. This is usually their work for life. With creative people it’s not so easy. People may study for years and then practice their craft for some years before moving into another area. Or they might write and sing. They may never have a job in their chosen field or get paid for doing it. And what about those who are creative in areas that aren’t usually thought of as “Art”? The seamstresses and the chefs, should I include them? And how about those creative thinkers? And gardeners? As I continued with this line of thinking I began to be overwhelmed. I had to draw the line somewhere! Here is what I came up with.
Click on the image to enlarge.
Starting first row, upper left:
Syruz Ahmad Grizm who raps and writes and does collages.
His wife Lady Syruz who also raps.
A 45 cut by Hubert Averette in the 1970’s.
Jacqui Vincent who danced.
Jacqui’s son, Vincent Bingham, tap dancing with Gregory Hines
I think this is John Mullins playing the saxophone.
Tony Shoemaker playing the drums.
Below is his father, Floyd Shoemaker, playing the bongos.
Next to him (going from r to l) is Annabelle McCall Martin with husband Edward and their children. Florida in the 1920s.
Jan Evans Peterson leaping through the air during her dance career.
Zaron Burnett’s book “The Carthaginian Honor Society.” (Pearl Cleage’s husband.)
Dee Dee McNeil jazz chanteuse and writer.
Dee Dee’s daughter Maricea during her singing career with the “Sophisticated Ladies”. She is the one on the far left in the photo.
Going back towards the right, we have Dee Dee’s son William Chappell who raps.
My daughter, Ayanna’s chapter in the homeschooling classic “Real Lives”.
Edward McCall, poet and publisher.
Henry W. Cleage playing the cello. He also was one of the most creative thinkers.
A drawing of me back in 1968 by my aunt (next line).
Gladys Cleage Evans – visual artist and art teacher.
Below Gladys we have her granddaughter, Shashu who sings, paints and does fantastic things with hair.
My daughter, Ife Williams sculpting. She is a sculptor and is now moving into pottery.
Below Ife is the heading for Henry W. Cleages chapbook “The Status Theory.”
Louis Cleage playing the organ. He also wrote “Smoke Rings” for the Illustrated News in the early 1960s and was also a creative thinker. Often in offbeat ways.
Below Louis you find me, Kristin Cleage, working on something. Blogger, printmaker, poet and sometime quilter.
A chapbook by my daughter Tulani.
“Smoke Rings” heading. Written by Louis Cleage.
Cousin Dale Evans in his Actor photo. He acted on TV and in movies.
My daughter Jilo in a play during her college years.
My grandmother, Pearl Reed, singing in concert in Indianapolis,1908.
a chapbook of my organizing poet son, James Williams.
Book by my father Albert B. Cleage, JR “The Black Messiah”. Another creative thinker.
Book by my sister Pearl Cleage “Mad at Miles”. Author and playwrite.
Sadya, pastry chef.
Beulah Allen Pope – seamstress
Mary Allen McCall – seamstress
Jennie Allen Turner – seamstress
Eliza Williams Allen – seamstress and mother of the three sisters above.
In my fourteenth post for the April A-Z Challenge, I am going to share a Nostalgic interview I did with my Uncle Henry Cleage in 1994. I’ve done several posts about the Freedom Now Party before. At that time I didn’t know how to embed the actual audio interview. I figured it out yesterday and so, here it is!
