I was quite surprised to find this news item awhile ago while searching for information about Jacob Cleage. It would have been interesting to find that my grandfather and his brother were involved in a knife fight, however there are several things in this clipping I know to be untrue.
R.C. Cleage is unknown to me. Jacob was my grandfather’s older brother’s name. My grandfather, A. B. Cleage, was the only medical student name of Cleage in Indianapolis during that time. He did work on the excursion boats out of Detroit during the summer of 1909. However, he graduated in June of 1910 and did not work on the boats in 1910.
My grandfather was married with a baby (my father) in September 1911. My grandmother did receive several postcards from Detroit dated July, 1911. I could find no record of legal happenings and no further news articles about it.
July 12, 1911 (Mrs. Pearl Cleage)
Just got back to Detroit, Hope you all are well and happy. Will feel better when I hear from you. Albert.
7/12/11 to Master A. B. Cleage Jr.
Did not forget you were 4 weeks old yesterday and tomorrow you will be 1 month. My, but you are getting old fast.
Papa
7/21/11 to Mrs. Pearl Cleage
Dear Pearl –
I am lonesome for you and baby. Want to see you all awful bad. Hope you are well and happy. Albert
What a conundrum! Glad that it apparently was fictional, and probably made up from the law student who somehow was not named! Perhaps he met your grandfather from the summer before, and told the story (maybe while drinking.) I’m so glad you’ve got those post cards from your grandfather to his son and wife.
I would have thought it would appear somewhere else, in a Detroit paper, in some court records.
I’m glad I have those postcards too. Well, copies of them. My cousin has the actual cards.
The ancestor search is full of mysteries! Do you think this incident happened in summer of 1911?
I don’t believe it happened at all. In 1909 he did work on the ship. In 1910 he was an intern in Indianapolis. In 1911 he was married, with a baby and practicing medicine, also in Indianapolis. I think if it had happened it would have been talked about in the family. We liked a good story. Never heard a peep about it. Nothing in the letters he wrote to my grandmother about it.
I have found surnames misreported in newspapers and the correct surname reported elsewhere so maybe try searching for the same item but without the surname and you may find the correct surname in a report in another newspaper.
My great grandfather’s surname was Cudmore and apparently he was nicknamed Snowy. There was an infamous gangster called Snowy Cutmore and his arrest was misreported. According to my grandmother my great grandfather’s friends found the misreporting hilarious.
I will try that. I have a cousin in Detroit who was going to investigate court records, but then corona…