Mershell Graham was born June 10, 1921 in Detroit Michigan. He died on November 2, 1927, at St. Jopseph Hospital, also in Detroit, from traumatic cerebral hemorrhage resulting from a fracture at the base of the skull during an automobile accident. Mershell was described as a single, colored male, a school boy age 6 years 4 months and 23 days old. He lived at 6638 Theodore Street with his family. He was buried in Detroit Memorial Park Cemetery on November 4, 1927. Both of his parents, Fanny Turner Graham and Mershell C. Graham were born in Montgomery Alabama. His father, my grandfather, Mershell Cunningham Graham, was the informant.
You can read more personal memories and descriptions of my Uncle Mershell’s death at these links links – Births, Deaths, Doctors and Detroit Part 1; 1940 Census – the Grahams – Supplemental Material; Go Bury thy sorrow – complete words and tune. Mershell Cunningham Graham
So sad!
Six years old? That’s terrible.
What really gets to me is seeing his occupation listed as “school boy”. Very sad.
So sad reading about a child dying. The photograph is beautiful and sad. Thank you for sharing his story.
He was a favorite playmate for my mother, who was about a year younger. They played games like “who can hit their head on the window the hardest without breaking it.” He lost. He fell down the clothes chute, not sure it it was from the kitchen or upstairs, but there were boards nailed across them that I remember from my childhood. So that it wouldn’t happen again. Mershell usually looks rather sad in his photographs, although my mother’s memories of him were not of a sad boy.