Doris Graham Cleage – 1923 – 1982

Grahams

My mother would have turned 95 years old today.  She was 59 when she died  in 1982, 32 years ago.  So much has happened since then.  She never saw either of my sons. She hasn’t seen any of her 11 great grandchildren. We were still living in Simpson County, MS.  Since then we’ve lived in Excelsior Spring, MO; Idlewild, MI and back to Atlanta, GA. Computers hadn’t made their way into our lives. Y2K. 9/11.  The 21st Century. Octavia Butler’s books. She would have loved them.  Detroit under siege. Strange weather. Monsanto. Obama. The Gulf War. The War in Iraq. The war in Afghanistan. Drones. Blogging. All the family history I’ve found. The oral history I’ve  proved right. All the questions I still have.

doris Graham Cleage
Individual Information Sheet my mother filled out for herself.
Individual Information Sheet my mother filled out for herself. I had filled out some information that she corrected. I added the death information much later. She filled this out soon after I started collecting in the late 1970s.

You can read more about my mother in these posts:

Growing Up – In Her Own Words
My Mother Was A Teacher
My Mother 1952
Airports and Answers: Some Thoughts on Lighting by Pearl Cleage

18 thoughts on “Doris Graham Cleage – 1923 – 1982”

  1. What a lovely tribute to your mom on her birthday. So sorry to hear that you lost her at an early age. I see where you get your strength from. Your mother was beautiful inside and out. The words used to describe her much warm your heart. Thank you for sharing her day. God bless.

  2. That was a Delight Kristin. So she was meant to be a “Cleage”? This is how I feel about Grandma Eddie. She didn’t get to see Daddy’s children. Thanks for sharing.

  6. Oh Kristin. I believe your Mom has experienced every one of those events you mentioned & been the wind beneath the wings of your research. Your research, interest, gift, meeting me in 2010 & sharing your blogging talents are no accident. Every post is visually lyrical. Knowing you, I bet I would have liked your Mom. And she’s probably up in Heaven getting the low-down on all Octavia’s books that would have been written! I love her writing too!:)

    1. I feel that but I do miss sharing with her in the here and now and talking about questions we never got to because we were both so young then. She wrote my first family history stories on that branch of the family and told me about Eliza when I was growing up.

  9. Happy Birthday, Mom! I’m sorry that I missed you. From what I’ve been told, we would’ve gotten along famously!

  10. No matter how much time passes, we never stop missing our mothers, and imagining their take on everything that comes to pass. She was so young.

  11. This post is a lovely tribute to your mother. It evoked very strong emotions in me. I could write a very similar post about my mother. She passed at about the same age and time. I find that the older I get the more I become aware of how much she has missed as grandchildren were born and grew up, etc.

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