All posts by Kristin

“E” is for Elmhurst

Biography, Family History Through the Alphabet, Houses

This post continues a series using the Alphabet to go through streets that were significant in my life as part of the Family History Through the Alphabet Challenge.  I wrote this post with “Sharing Memories: Leaving Home” in mind too.

In late March of 1969, I moved into my first apartment. I was in Detroit. It was located at the corner of Elmhurst and N. Martindale.  I was 22 years old and so happy to be in my own space and not to have to answer to anyone.  My rent was $80 a month, utilities included. I earned $50 a week at the Black Star Sewing Factory.

Journal entry  – March 29, 1969
reading back (in my journal) is strange.  I don’t feel that way any more.  Living alone takes the pressure off.  What you do, you do for yrself not through  fear of displeasure and endless discussions.

My apartment used to be on the upper right, now bare, lot. Walking straight ahead I got to Linwood and the Black Conscience Library.  Walking in the other direction I reached Broadstreet and my route to work.

Not surprisingly, the building is no longer there. Neither is the short row of store fronts behind it.   I found the apartment building below using Google Maps. I moved it to the empty lot at Elmhurst and N. Martindale using Photoshop.  The size and layout of the apartment is about the same. I had to change the color of the bricks from red to yellow.  My apartment was #304. You can see it on the top floor. The first windows on the right were my neighbors bathroom and bedroom windows.  My bedroom window is next, the short window is the bathroom, then my living room and last the eat-in kitchen.

My first apartment as I remember it and as Photoshop helped me recreate it.  It was yellow brick and the trim was darker, but I was unable to get it to look right , hence the peachy trim you see above. There were no plants or greenery around the front door, but otherwise, it is as I remember it.

Journal entry July 28, 1969 (Monday)  I’m so skinny I wear a size 10 and this kid said “hi twiggy” as I walked by. I am trying to get fatter. My hair is 12 feet tall.

My furniture was basic and made or found, except for the mattress. It was new and sat flat on the floor without spring or frame. I made curtains out of burlap which gave the rooms a nice orange glow when daylight showed through. I stacked a pile of shag rug pieces for a couch.  A piece of green fabric was stuffed with fabric scraps made a pillow to sit on. It was heavy as lead. Jim found an old table and some chairs somewhere for the kitchen. I used a box for a bedside table and the phone sat on that too. I kept my clothes in the closet or in the old trunk at the end of the bed. I had a nice round table top but I never got any legs for it.  I had an old combo radio/record player that had once belonged to my parents and had passed on to me.

I bought a sewing machine from Sears and returned it because parts were missing and it wasn’t what I wanted after all. Eventually I ordered a “Hudson” sewing machine, from J.L Hudson’s. It was a Japanese made machine and just like the one my mother had, except they had replaced some of the metal parts with plastic.

One night I was awakened by a loud crash and a flash of light.  A car had crashed into the telephone pole across the street. It was horribly crushed. A small, silent, crowd gathered. Everybody cheered as the driver climbed out of the window, unhurt.

Journal entry     June 30, 1969
Last night cooked cabbage and pork chops and rice at 1:00AM.  it was the first decent meal I’ve had in a month because I didn’t have any food and have been eating rice and beans.  I kept burning them and scorched black eyed peas are no treat.  I guess things are going to be o.k. for a while again.  It’s really nice outside.  Sunny, windy instead of 98 and muggy.

I remember the joy of going to a supermarket instead of the mom and pop store across the street and laying in a supply of groceries. Eating wasn’t something I spend a lot of time thinking about, planning for,  or doing at that time. Eventually my mother gave me a copy of “The Joy of Cooking” and I started making my own bread.

Journal entry  July 15, 1969  Saturday 2:10PM
I got another job after sewing It’s from 6 – 8pm , organizing teenagers.  some Methodist 5 week “imaginal education” program in Highland Park.  for reasons unknown, they made Jim director.  $30/wk for 6 weeks plus a $75 bonus at the end.  supposed to be with black teens but one center was mixed and I’m in it.  luckily i have Arthur, a 17 or 18 year old black-panther-cass-dropout and his girlfriend to work with me.  he’s actually good at working with the teens.  he gets on very well with them.  he got them all het up yesterday about organizing their community. they’re 13-14. only about 12 came.  first 2 days NOBODY came and we were afraid we’d be fired, but then one girl came and the next day, three came.  out of the 12, 2 are Mexican, 2 black and the rest white.  it should be interesting.   hardly ever get home before 10:00pm.

I spent a lot of time thinking about Jim and wondering about where we were going and where he was and when he was coming by and why he hadn’t come by and how long he was going to stay and on and on and on.

Journal entry      June 4, 1969
i’ve been listening to  Leonard Cohen’s new record.  two days over and over. at first it was tired, but now i really like it, after the 2,000th revolution. i like  the partisan song best, about coming out of the shadows.

Click on the picture to enlarge.

You can read about my first moving out on I Once Worked at a Sewing Factory and about my trip up and down Broadstreet to work at B is for Broadstreet.

“D” is for Dexter

Biography, Family History Through the Alphabet

This post continues a series using the Alphabet to go through streets that were significant in my life as part of the Family History Through the Alphabet Challenge.

I moved a lot when I lived in Detroit. Most of the time I was in the same area.  Dexter is one of the streets I never lived on but that runs through my years.

My earliest memory from Dexter happened in a Chinese Restaurant. I was about 8 years old and was there with my parents and sister, Pearl.  The booth was enclosed,  a curtain across the door made it like a little room, filled by the table and chairs. My father and sister ordered the turkey dinner. My mother and I ordered Chinese food. Pearl and I were laughing about something silly. My mother told us not to laugh because the waiter might think we were laughing at him.

The Dexter Theater – Thanks to Paul Lee for use of the photograph.

My mother took us to see the never ending “Ten Commandments” at the Dexter Theater, at the corner of Dexter and Burlingame. My father took us to see “West Side Story” when it came out in 1961. When Tony got shot to death and Maria started to sing “Somewhere”, the audience burst into laughter.

After the 1967 Detroit riot,  Rap Brown spoke to an overflowing and enthusiastic crowd. My father and sister milled around outside for awhile. Jim (now my husband) was working with the Inner City Voice newspaper, one of the groups sponsoring the event along with the Friends of SNCC (the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee).  I wondered for years why I wasn’t there until I put together the date with some letters I wrote home and realized I was at a student conference in Santa Barbara, California.  The whole block where the theater stood is now a vacant lot.

A group trying, unsuccessfully, to save the Dexter Theater after the 1967 Detroit riot. Note the bullet holes in the window. Thanks again to Paul Lee for use of this photo.

Former site of the Dexter Theater as it is today. Google maps photo.

Kristin and Pearl laughing at home (not on Dexter) – 1963.

 When we lived on Oregon Street, Pearl and I would catch the Dexter bus on Saturday to the Main Library, the Detroit Historical Museum or the Detroit Institute of Art. Bus fare was 25 cents. Admission to the museums was free. We ate hamburgers at a drug store on the corner of Warren and Cass. It had a lunch counter. Once we rode our bikes and parked them outside of the library, without using locks. They were stolen so we walked home.

During my college years I took the Dexter bus to and from school.  When we lived on Oregon, I walked 8 blocks to Dexter and West Grand Blvd to catch it. It took me right down Cass Ave. to the campus. When we moved on Fairfield, out by the University of Detroit,  the Dexter bus stopped right across from the flat.  I could stay on campus later and catch the bus right to my door after dark. I wished we had lived there for the other three years I was in college.

Ed Vaughn opened Vaughn’s Bookstore at 12123 Dexter about 1964. I remember winning a gift certificate to the bookstore during the summer of 1964.  It was the first black bookstore in Detroit. He carried some art objects along with a wide variety of fiction and history from African, the USA and the Caribbean Islands.  There were novels from the Harlem Renaissance and from West Africa.  I still have some of the books and small sculptures I bought there. You couldn’t find these books in other Detroit bookstores in the 1960s.

Vaughn also sponsored Forum -65, ’66 and ’67 which brought various speakers into the bookstore to talk about topics such as black nationalism, culture, Africa and the condition of black people in America and around the world.  Many lively discussions took place. I didn’t attend too many of the forums, but I regularly attended the Black Star Cooperative meetings, which were also held there. In fact, I was the secretary.  My uncle Henry and I attended the weekly meetings where the group talked about cooperative housing and other ways to pool our money. I remember Henry talking about starting a credit union.

During the 1967 Detroit riot, Vaughn’s bookstore was damaged by the police. To read an interview with Ed Vaughn about his bookstore and the Detroit riot click HERE. A more recent article about Vaughn and some memories of the bookstore back in the day, go to Ed Vaughn, Alabama NAACP president injured.

Vaughn’s Bookstore was in one of these buildings. There seems to be a church in one and the rest look empty.

I remember being very pregnant the summer of 1970 and walking to the grocery store on Dexter wearing platform sandles. The Black Conscience library was temporarily housed in the basement of friends house on Glendale and I was temporarily living in a nice size cedar closet with a window and view of the tree tops, in the attic. I remember going to Mattie’s Bar-B-Q at 11728 Dexter, near Glendale, during the same time.  I usually ordered chicken with sides of greens and sweet potatoes, or macaroni and cheese. Jim always ordered short ribs with his two sides. It was small, crowded and friendly. It wasn’t very expensive, stayed open late and the food was as good or better then what was served at The Red Satin, a more high tone soul food restaurant with table cloths. My father took me there several times. I remember going one year to celebrate Mother’s Day with him and my grandmother, sister and several uncles.  Mattie’s building is gone. You can see the building that housed the Red Satin as it looked in 2009 below.

The Red Satin used to be in the pink building. It wasn’t pink at the time. Buildings in Detroit didn’t use to be painted such garish colors as they are today.

About the time I moved to my own apartment, my aunt Mary V Graham Elkins, got a job at the Hospital across the street from the flat on Fairfield that my mother, Henry and my Graham grandparents shared. She moved into a flat around the corner from them and the hospital, at 16203 Dexter.  My cousin Barbara and her two sons eventually moved into the flat next door to her. Neither of the Dexter flats are standing now. The Fairfield flat is.

 

Sitting on my cousin Barbara’s porch holding a cat in 1970. The house in the background is still standing, you can see it below. In the other photograph Mary V., Barbara and Marilyn sit on her porch with friends in 1981.

The site where Mary V and Barbara’s flats used to stand.


View Dexter Ave. in a larger map

“C” is for Calvert

Biography, Family History Through the Alphabet, Houses
Stores stood on the vacant land.

This post continues a series using the Alphabet to go through streets that were significant in my life as part of the “Family History Through the Alphabet” challenge.

We moved to 2705 Calvert from 2254 Chicago Blvd when my parents separated in the fall of 1954. I was 8 and my sister was 6. We lived upstairs in a two family flat.  “Beans Bowles”, the musician and his family lived downstairs. Our elementary school, Roosevelt, was two blocks away. My mother, Mrs. Cleage to her students, taught Social Studies at the same school.  I remember playing outside a lot – on the block, at the playground and in a vacant lot at Lawton and Boston.  There were many children on the block of all ages. We played “7-Up” where you throw a ball against the side of the house, clap your hands and count higher and higher until you miss. We drew hopscotch grids on the sidewalk and played that.  We roller skated and rode our bikes.

There was a drugstore and a small grocery store next to it on the corner of Linwood and Calvert. My mother bought rotten meat at the grocery once and the man didn’t want to take it back until she threatened to call the health department. We still bought penny candy there – wine candy, lick-a-maid.  My mother never shopped there again.  That whole business section of the block is empty now.

The year I wore glasses. My sister Pearl holding  her Christmas book “Amal and the Night Visitors.” I was about 9. The photo was taken by my mother before school in the backyard.
My sister Pearl and me. We are fake racing on the upper porch.
The houses in the background of the above photo as they look today on Google Maps.
learn to skate.
I must have been about 12 helping my cousin Marilyn learn to skate.

I have no photographs taken inside the house but I do remember the layout.

One day my sister and I were sitting on the upper back porch playing paper dolls when one of the younger boys from downstairs climbed up from his back porch to ours.  That’s what his plan was anyway. As his hand came over the edge I started beating it with my fist. He went back down in a hurry. Thankfully he didn’t fall down and break his neck, but as I said to my sister at the time “You can’t let that get started.”

I remember my cousin Dee Dee babysitting us. We were laying on the floor trying to make something rise with the power of our minds, when she hollered “GAS!” and ran into the kitchen. Gas was indeed escaping from an unlit burner on the stove. She turned it off and we opened up all the windows and lived.  I remember having the measles during Spring break and laying in the darkened room.  My sister and I still shared a room so we had company in our misery.

We lived in the upstairs flat. This is how the house looked in 2004 after a fire.

In my mind’s eye I can see  a puzzle I did of sheep grazing on a hillside, and the view of the houses across the alley out of our bedroom window.  I remember a disaster of a birthday party where nobody came,  and cleaning the bathroom on Saturdays. I remember going to sleep while my mother played Richard Crooks, Paul Robeson and Harry Belafonte. I remember playing “water wars” in the bathtub with our poor, soggy dollhouse dolls floating around in plastic bag covered Kleenix boxes.

There were ballet lessons at Toni’s School of Dance, piano lessons from Mr. Manderville and violin at school that I never practiced.  I remember pet turtles, always with the same names and always dying from soft shell disease, in spite of being dosed with cod liver oil. I read Songberd’s Grove and The Little Princess.  While my mother was taking classes towards her master’s at Wayne I read Peyton Place, Mandingo and The Second Sex.

I remember walking home from school under a canopy of elm trees before they lost to Dutch Elm disease. And walking to school through 2 feet of snow after a March storm. I remember walking down Lasalle to our old house on Chicago, where my father still lived, everyday for lunch. There were plays at Central High School we attended with my cousins. And the days at Roosevelt when there were only a few students because everybody else was celebrating the Jewish Holidays  I remember graduating from Roosevelt Elementary school and the confusion of Durfee Junior high school.

The parking lot where 2705 Calvert once stood. From Google Maps.

My mother’s sister and her three daughters lived two blocks down Calvert in a lower flat. Later my Aunt and Uncle – Anna and Winslow, bought the flat next door and my father moved into the downstairs flat while they lived upstairs.

Me, Pearl and cousin Barbara. My cousin Dale watching us. We are between the 2 flats.  Dale and Barbara aren’t related.
My father lived downstairs on the left. My uncle and aunt lived upstairs. My mother’s sister and her family lived downstairs in the red house, which was yellow brick back then and all the porches were screened. This photograph is from Google maps.

Before my mother’s sister Mary V. Elkins and her family, moved into the flat on Calvert, my father’s sister, Gladys Evans and her family, lived there.  Jan was a baby. They had just moved back to Detroit after their father got out of the service and stayed with us for a minute on Chicago, then moved to Calvert. When they moved from Calvert to Pasadena, the Elkins family moved into the flat. The Wallaces, who were members of my father’s church, lived upstairs and probably passed on the information that the flat was available.

Related Posts

Some posts about living on Chicago Blvd.  I Once Was a Brownie, Dinner Time (this one also mentions meals on Calvert) and We Never Had Outdoor Lights.

We Read, We Write, We Print and We Publish.

Carnival of Genealogy

Photos include 2 grandparents, both parents, several aunts and uncles, my husband, me, all 6 of my children, all 9 of my grandchildren, plus  some spouses, my sister and some cousins.  Click on the picture to enlarge.

I come from a family of readers. When I was growing up there were magazines, newspapers, fiction, encyclopedias, cookbooks, comic books, poetry books, the Bible, children’s books, adult books, how-to books, instruction manuals, old books and new books. We read paperback and hardcover books.  Now we read on Kindles, Nooks, computers and our cell phones.  We write full length books and chapbooks, for each other and for the world – fiction, poetry, speeches, plays, journals and diaries.  We publish newspapers, newsletters and blogs.  We give books as gifts and receive them. We buy them and we borrow them from the library and from each other.

What am I reading these days? When I am on the computer I read for information, usually related to a blog post I’m working on these days about a family related topic. And I read other people’s blogs. Off of the computer, I am reading some Australian fiction that Pauline and her friends recommended for me. You can find the list on her website Family History Across the Seas.  I’ve also started reading genealogy related mystery novels on my Kindle.

Here are some reading related posts I’ve done in the past – I Met My Husband in the Library, Home Library 1931,   Getting An Education, The Illustrated News, Poems by James Edward McCall, Henry Cleage and the Press, Proof Positive – A Short Story by Henry Cleage,

To see the books my sister, Pearl Cleage has written go to Amazon -Pearl Cleage.  To see books my father, Albert B. Cleage Jr has written go to Amazon here.

This post was written as part of the Carnival of Genealogy (COG) #118 sponsored by  Jasia at CreativeGene .

 

Cows and Conscientious Objectors

Cleages, sepia saturday,

These cows appear to be coming to the barn for milking. I believe they were on the farm my uncles Henry and Hugh Cleage had during WW2 as conscientious objectors.  They had to milk a certain number of cows and they also had chickens. Henry was 26 and Hugh was 24 when they started farming. Hugh had a degree in agriculture from Michigan State University.  They were conscientious objectors because of segregation and discrimination both inside and outside of the military. All of the training camps were located in the segregated south and the officers were all white.  Henry wrote several of his stories while working on the farm, which was called “Plum-Nelly”, as in “Plum out the county, nelly (nearly) out the state”.  Their farm was located near Avoka in St. Clair county, 62 miles north of Detroit.

Dr. Albert B. Cleage Sr with a good looking cow.
From left to right: Great Uncle Henry Cleage my uncle Henry was named after his uncle Henry.), Albert B. Cleage Sr. On the other side of the cow are Uncle Jake, Henry’s son Richard Cleage & the husband of a cousin.
Hugh with pipe around the time of the farm.
Henry Cleage

___________________

I found an interesting interview with Ernest Calloway that reminded me of talking with Henry about being a conscientious objector below.  You can read the full interview here – INTERVIEW WITH ERNEST CALLOWAY where he talks about other aspects of his long and interesting career as a labor organizer.

CALLOWAY: “Of course, in the first instance, I was a conscientious objector on the grounds of racial discrimination. I had the first…mine was the first case, you know. I refused to go into the Army as long as the Army was Jim Crow. And, oh, this was a battle for about two years. Over local draft board and state appeals board. I don’t think they ever actually settled the case…I think the case is still on the files somewhere…they just forgot about it. But I had pointed out on my questionnaire, the military wanted this questionnaire that I was given, the question was asked, “Are you a conscientious objector on moral grounds?” I scratched out the word “moral” and wrote in “special”, social grounds. And then I submitted a statement to explain that on the question on racial discrimination, under no condition did I feel like I was obligated, you know, to accept service in the Army. Of course, the chairman of the draft board thought I was kidding. And I insisted to him that I wasn’t kidding. I pointed out to him that if I was going to die then I was going to insist that it be on the basis of equality, you know. And, of course, finally, finally I did. Finally, the Communists wanted to take over the case in Chicago…then I get a telegram from Walter White of the NAACP that the NAACP would be interested in pushing the case. And White suggested that I contact the Legal Redress Committee there in Chicago, at the Chicago NAACP. And I went down to meet with the Legal Redress Committee which included such people as Earl Dickerson and some of the top black lawyers, you know, in the city of Chicago. But I found myself on the defensive because they were primarily concerned on…to determine what was my political background and my attitude about war in general. At that time, I was associated with the Keep America Out of War Congress which was headed, I think, by Norman Thomas… Norman Thomas, at the time…and a number of other liberal, socialists and liberals. And after about an hour and a half of this being on the defensive, trying to explain myself, I finally pointed out to these, to the lawyers, that I’m here at the invitation of Mr. White…that he asked me to come down and said the NAACP was interested in the case… that they would like to pursue the case of discrimination in the Army, but if you fellows are not interested in this, and I do not have to explain my political, you now…political motives and that sort of thing. That I can take care of myself, you know. I know what to do to take care of myself. Then I walked out of the room and, of course, one of the young lawyers followed me and he said he felt that I was right, that he would like to work with me on the case. And finally I was called into the office of the State Appeals Chairman who happened to be a Negro. And he wanted to know what was, and, of course, evidently a lot of publicity was being given to the thing, the national magazines, the black press, and that sort of thing. As a matter of fact, we had decided to form a little organization of our own, which included Sinclair Drake, who at that time was working with Horace Keaton on that Chicago, black Chicago project, Enoch Waters who was the editor of the Chicago Defender at the time, and a number of other youngsters; we were all youngsters. That was something like… Committee Against Jim Crow in the Army. And what we had discussed was the question if we could ever get a public hearing before the Appeals Board…we could put on a show, you know. And this was what we were after, you know. So, finally, the Chairman of the Appeals Board called me into his office. And he wasn’t clear about what in the hell this thing was all about. Of course, there were two technical aspects to it. Number one, the local draft board had refused to issue me, at that time…what was called Form 47, which is the form that is supposed to be issued to conscientious objectors to build their cases, you know. And, secondly, he had denied me the right to appeal from the decision of 1-A. I couldn’t appeal from this decision. Now we used to have more damn hassles, he used to, he called one day and he said, “You think you’re a smart nigger. But you think you’re gonna come in here and mess up this draft board, but you ain’t gonna do it to my draft board.” I said, “Well, you know, when I, when they, when I registered up here at the school, they told me I should look upon my draft board as a committee of friends and neighbors, and if I had any problems, I should discuss it with them, with the draft board.” And I said, “Gentlemen, I got a problem. I ain’t going into no damn Jim Crow Army. How we gonna work this thing out?” And, oh, we would sit there and argue like cats and dogs. And, of course, I had problems with my own organization, too, which was the redcaps union. The President of the Union, Thompson, felt that this would be bad for the union. Very bad for the union, you know. But the secretary-treasurer, we…I was very friendly with the secretary-treasurer… he felt I was not handling the thing properly…that I should keep from getting into arguments with these people and play it cool and that sort of thing. I said, “Well, John, you come on over to the draft board with me. Let me see how cool you can be with these guys.” And, you know, he said, “Mr. Calloway, let’s look at it this way.”…I think what they were trying to do is change my mind… he said, “Let’s look at it this way. Two neighbors are fighting, like cats and dogs, and so one neighbor’s house catches fire, what you do is stop fighting and help the neighbor put the fire out,” he said. “You understand…you understand what I’m talking about?” I said, “I don’t understand a word you’re saying. I’m not going in any Jim Crow Army. I don’t know who’s fire you’re talking about.” But, anyway, then I explained to the Appeals Chairman the technical problems and he said, “Well, hell, they can’t do that to you.” He said, “You have the right to appeal the 1-A and you have a good case. And I don’t know anything about this Form 47 for conscientious objectors, but I’ll go and get you one of those forms.” And he was a Negro, a Negro lawyer, and he said, “These people made me the chairman of the appeals board, but I been a black, too long…been a Negro too long, you know…I think you’ve done the right thing.” He said, “I’m going to get you a…this conscientious objector thing…and I don’t know, you talk about on social grounds, but it says something about moral. But you take as much time as you want, and you put your best foot forward.” And, of course, I did work out the statement and submitted it to the Appeals Chairman. And I haven’t heard from the case since. So, that’s been from 1940, this was, of course, all of this was before Pearl Harbor. All, most of this was before Pearl Harbor.”

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“B” is for Broadstreet

Biography, Cleages, Family History Through the Alphabet, Houses

This post continues a series using the Alphabet to go through streets that were significant in my life as part of the “Family History Through the Alphabet” challenge.

In 1969 I moved into my first apartment at 11750 N. Martindale and Elmhurst in Detroit.  I was working at the Black Star Clothing Factory.  To get to work I would walk a block down Elmhurst to Broadstreet.  There I stopped by for a fellow sewer who lived on the corner. We would walk the 1.2 miles down Broadstreet to the Black Star Clothing Factory on Whitfield. According to Google Maps it takes 24 minutes to walk it.  I think we were faster.

"Black Star clothing"
Sewing machines on Broadstreet

By the time the factory moved into the basement of the Shrine of the Black Madonna Cultural Center on Livernois, at the other end of Broadstreet, my walking partner was no longer working at the Clothing factory and I walked the 1.1 miles by myself. Google Maps says it takes 22 minutes.

I worked at sewing from March 1969 to November of 1969. I was not chased by dogs, accosted by maniacs, or any other disasters on my walks. The only outstanding event was that one day I bought an ironing board after work and carried it home the whole 1.2 miles.

The sewing factory moved to the basement of the Cultural Center after the church acquired it.


View Broadstreet Avenue in a larger map

My aunt and uncle, Anna (Cleage) and Winslow Shreve lived at 12636 Broadstreet until 2010. Whenever I visited Detroit from Idlewild I tried to stop in for a visit.
My uncle Winslow Shreve
My aunt Anna Cleage Shreve

We would have cookies and coffee or tea. One time Winslow was making oatmeal, so I had oatmeal. They would tell me about how things used to be in Detroit, how it was living there now. And always had a good family story or two.

While working on this post I spent several hours “walking” through my old Detroit neighborhoods on Google Maps. Seeing the buildings that are gone, the ones that are trashed, the ones that are well kept and the ones that are boarded up, was depressing.  When I do the next street, I will try not to go traipsing down side streets to see how the neighborhood is doing because most of my old neighborhoods are doing terrible.  Here’s something good though, Anna said that one thing that made their house livable through all of the decline was that there was a park across the street so that she could look out of the window at trees.  The park seems to still be in good condition.

The park across the street from the Sheve’s

“A” is for Atkinson

Biography, Cleages, Family History Through the Alphabet, Houses

 This post begins a series using the Alphabet to go through streets that were significant in my life, as part of the “Family History Through the Alphabet” challenge.

I will start with Atkinson in Detroit. The layout  of the house isn’t exact as far as scale, but it is as close as I remember it. The last time I was in this house was in 1953. I was 6 years old.

Downstairs at 2212 Atkinson with photos. Scale is way off.

In 1951, when I was four, my father received a call to St. Marks Presbyterian church in Detroit. We left Springfield, Massachusetts  and moved into 2212 Atkinson, down the street from my paternal grandparents who lived at 2270 Atkinson.    St. Marks was located a block away, in the other direction, on 12th Street.  The 1967 Detroit riot started a block from the church.

I attended kindergarten at Brady Elementary School. I was eager to start school and there were no tears or fear.  I remember a cartoon with the white corpuscles battling it out with germs, painting everyday on the easel.  I don’t remember my regular teacher but a substitute teacher stays in my mind.  She was short and wore her white hair piled high on top of her head, kind of like a wedding cake. I remember her as wearing a purple dress and being mean.

I  walked to school by myself – two blocks down Atkinson,  a short distance on Linwood to the light and a long block next to Sacred Heart Seminary.  Usually there were no other walkers because I was late. I especially remember being late when I started first grade and came home for lunch. I must have been a slow eater because I was late just about everyday.  I didn’t mind walking alone but I didn’t like being late. One day I was coming home for lunch and as I was passing the neighbors house, two girls around my age, were outside with their dog Duchess.  The dog came up growling and caught my wrist in her mouth.  They just stood there and I just stood there. Soon my mother came out and rescued me.  She said she heard me calling her but actually I hadn’t said a word.  My father kept a big stick by the door to hit Duchess with when she ran out to attack.

Pearl and I shared a bedroom. For much of the time she was still in her crib. She was 2 or 3 when we moved. She would tell me stories about Oliver Olive and a tear on the wallpaper right over her crib that we called Tecumseh.  Later, after I learned to read, I taught Pearl to read when we were supposed to be going to sleep. We had a little table over by the window and the street light gave us enough light. Out of our side window we would watch our neighbors, the two girls with the mean dog, playing in their fantastic attic playroom. We had to go to bed at 8pm all year long, light outside or not. They did not.  When it was light outside and I was in bed, I imagined pictures from the folds in the curtains.

We were not allowed to play outside of the backyard, even though I was walking alone blocks and blocks through rain and snow and sleet to school.  There was a large screened in porch on the back of the house but we couldn’t play on it because it never got cleaned off and we would have tracked dust and dirt into the house. It was a really nice porch and I longed to play on it. But I didn’t.  My mother bought us some easels and paint because I liked to paint at school so much and I used to paint in the basement when she was washing or hanging up clothes.

We didn’t have a car and we took the 14th street bus to go downtown and to go over to my grandparents on the east side on Saturdays. There must have been a streetcar around there too because I didn’t get sick when we rode the streetcar but when we took the bus we sometimes had to get off and walk because I would be getting ready to throw up.  My mother’s bank was on Linwood and I remember the black and white squares on the floor that my sister and I used to walk around on. Down the street was a Dime store where we use to buy tiny little dolls with tiny blue bath tubs and a comparatively big bottle. There were a lot of little toys but that is all I remember buying.  The bank is now deserted and the rest of the block is empty.

During first grade I told my mother I didn’t feel good one morning. She thought I was just trying to get out of school, although I don’t remember trying to get out of school, and made me go.  By the time I came home for lunch I had a fever. It turned out I had pneumonia and missed half of that year of school.  I was moved into my parents room and I guess they moved to the guest room.  My uncle Louis, who was a doctor and lived down the street at his parents house came by to see me everyday. I remember him singing “Oh if I had the wings of an angel over these prison walls I would fly…” as he came up the stairs.  For a while I had to use a bedpan and I remember holding on to the wall for support when I finally was allowed up. By the time I got to go downstairs it was like being in a new house it had been so long since I saw it.

In 1953, my father was involved in a church fight and led a faction of 300 out to start another church which became Central Congregational Church, then Central United Church of Christ and finally The Shrine of the Black Madonna.  My sister Pearl and I spent that summer with my mother’s parents on Theodore. My father stayed with his parents on Atkinson. In the fall we moved to a new parsonage on Chicago Blvd.

Recent shot from Google maps.

 I found this description of 2212 Atkinson online. Built in 1921, it is a single family 2,222 square foot residence. Has two stories with a basement. (I recall an unfinished attic.) It has one full and one partial bathroom.  The heating is by hot water. (I remember the radiators) The exterior walls are brick and there is a fireplace. (The fireplace was in the room designated for the use of the church only.)

Upstairs of the parsonage. Unfortunately no photos outside of my mind.


View Atkinson Street Detroit, Michigan in a larger map

The National Bank of Detroit on Linwood, St. Marks on 12th, Brady Elementary, Playground on Atkinson and 12th, at my grandparents

Other posts that relate to the house on Atkinson and St. Marks;

Dinner Time
Ghost photo of Atkinson then and now
A Day in 1953 Merges with a day in 2011
Politics

The Boulé

Cleages, sepia saturday

Today’s SepiaSaturday prompt showed a wedding party in their posh clothes.  My photos are not of a wedding party but everybody is dressed up and most are wearing hats.  They are from my Cleage family collection and are labeled only “Boulé“. They were taken during the 1950’s in Detroit, I believe.  I had heard of the Boulé all my life as an organization my grandparents belonged to. I had no idea it was secret fraternal organization until I started working on this post.  I have labeled my grandparents.  I do not know who any of the other people are.

My grandfather, Dr. Albert B. Cleage Sr on the right hand end of the line.  Where is his hat?

My grandmother, Pearl Reed Cleage, is second on the right.

My grandmother, Pearl Reed Cleage, 4th from the right.  Why is she giving her neighbor that look?  Because she isn’t wearing her hat?

“Sigma Pi Phi Fraternity, also known as the Boule, is the first Greek-letter fraternity to be founded by African American men. Significantly, unlike the other African American Greek -letter organizations, its members already have received college and professional degrees at the time of their induction. The fraternity’s insignia is the Sphinx.

From the beginning, Sigma Pi Phi Fraternity was a learned society, a social fraternity and an advancement organization, albeit a quiet one. As well, the fraternity believed absolutely in the equality of standing of its members and insisted that anyone who was eligible for membership was eligible and qualified for leadership. The founders were so certain of this fact that the fraternity selected its officers by lot, a custom that continued for the most senior officer until 1970.”   Taken from the official Boule page. Click to read the more about the Boulé.

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