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 great grandmother, Celia Rice Cleage Sherman was born into slavery about 1855 in Tennessee to Susan Rice and an unknown (to me) member of the enslaving Rice family. In 1870, Celia was living with her mother and siblings in Athens Tennessee, not too far from her future husband Louis Cleage and his family. She was the only one in her family who was able to read, although she couldn’t write. I don’t know how or when she learned to read.
On April 25, 1872 my great grandmother Celia Rice married her first husband, Louis Cleage in Athens, Tennessee. Twenty seven years later on April 25, 1899, she married her second husband William Roger Sherman, also in Athens, Tennessee. I had never noticed this before looking for all the April events I could find in my family.
Celia was seventeen when she married my great grandfather Louis Cleage in 1872. Louis was twenty. Five children were born to this union, Josephine (1873), Jacob (1874), Henry (1877), Charles Edward (1879) and my grandfather Albert B. Cleage (1883). In 1880 the family was living in Louden County, Tennessee where Louis was sharecropping.
By 1900 Celia was in Athens and had remarried. Louis was working as a furnace laborer in Jefferson County, Alabama. Louis could not read or write.
Celia was 44 when she married William Roger Sherman, who was 53. They also married in Athens. In the 1900 census Celia was working as a cook, William Roger was a carpenter. Both of them could read but not write. Celia’s three youngest sons were living in the home and attending school. They were now 21, 19 and 17. Her daughter Josie was married and lived next door with her family. Her son Jacob lived in Chattanooga, Tennessee where he was a waiter.
Louis Cleage died in Indianapolis in 1918.
Lewis Cleage, of Athens. Tenn. has been with his son. Jacob Cleage, of this city, for nearly two years, died Thursday afternoon at the city hospital, where he was taken Wednesday. The funeral services were conducted today at the home of his daughter, Mrs. Josie Cleage, 1325 Massachusetts avenue, at 2 o’clock. The Rev. John Brice officiating. Besides a daughter. Mr. Cleage is survived by four sons, Dr. Albert Cleage Detroit. Henry and Jacob Cleage of this city and Edward Cleage of Athens, Tenn. The body will be taken to Athens for burial.
By 1920 Celia was living in Detroit with my grandfather and his family. William Roger Sherman was living in North Carolina with his daughter. He was in poor health and died later in 1920. Celia died in Detroit in 1930.
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Other Posts about them
Louis Cleage & Family – 1880
Louis Cleage – Work Day Wednesday
Louis/Lewis Cleage’s Death Certificate 1852 – 1918
Celia Rice Cleage Sherman – Her Life 1855 – 1930
Celia’s Death Certificate
On the way to bury their mother… June 1930
Sherman, William Roger- Tennessee
They moved so much! That is fascinating to me as a person that has also moved many times.
They did move a lot. And they didn’t even work from home!
I guess if you get married on the same day twice it’s easier to remember your anniversary! lol
It would be for sure.
The same anniversary date would be something hard to spot, unless you gave yourself the assignment that you did this month. That’s great that you noticed something because of this challenge.
It is surprising what I learn by doing the challenges.
I am so impressed with your research and with your attention to details including things like noticing the anniversary date. Are you continuing to research your family history or are you to the point where you know MOST of it?
I don’t think family history research is EVER done. I still find new information as new records come online and as I give another look at records I have. And ther may be some DNA cousins out there waiting to make contact and share information. I hope so!
By special day, I guess you mean marriage. Celia being able to read and not write is odd but maybe not in those days. I always associte reading with writing.
Thanks for stopping by my a-z posts. Have a lovely day.
I needed a “V” and thought very special day went well for that. So, yes the marriages were the special days.
Back when people didn’t attend school and learned to read from friends or other children, they often learned to read without learning to write. Once they learned the basics of reading, they could add to that knowledge by more reading. Writing would have come if they’d been learning in school or if the lessons from others had continued. Probable in Celia’s case, they didn’t and she didn’t have an opportunity to spend time teaching herself or learning from her children as they went to school because she was busy working at home and at cooking for the restaurant or on the farm and raising five children.