All posts by Kristin

“O” is for Oregon Street

August 18, 2012Biography, Family History Through the Alphabet, Houses, memoriesKristin

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. This post takes us back to the time when I was still living at home.

My mother bought the house at 5397 Oregon in 1959 for $8,000. It was the first house we owned. Before that we lived in houses owned by the church my father pastored or, after my parents divorced, in a rented flat on Calvert. I was 13 and in the 8th grade when we moved in and a 21 years old senior in college when we moved to the flat on Fairfield. Nine years was the longest I lived in any house when I was at home.

Sitting on the porch with my mother. 1962.

Photographs from the downstairs, various years.

There are no photographs of the upstairs. There was a hall, three bedrooms and the only bathroom in the house. My room looked out on the backyard. The other two bedrooms looked out the front of the house. The bathroom was right across from my room and the stairs were right next to it. The hall ended in a door that went out on the upper back porch. These two drawings are of my bedroom, looking out on the hall and the stairs and the bathroom. They are ballpoint pen and then I sprayed them with perfume. I had to come up with an experimental project for this advanced drawing class and that is what I came up with. I ruined many drawings with that perfume.

Some memories from those years:

Discovering world wide revolution as I started high school. Getting magazines from Cuba, China and Mexico. Listening to radio Habana on the short wave band of our radio. Spending hours in my room reading, clipping photos and articles, looking at maps, filling in maps.

The Christmas we got several of Miriam Mekeba’s records and they became the sound track for that Christmas.

The neighbor’s house being so close that in the summer I could hear them talking through my open bedroom window.

The summer my cousins came to visit from Athens Tennessee and slept in my sister’s room while she moved in with me. The visit was half over when we discovered they had not set up the cot and were crowding into one twin bed. We set it up for them.

My cousin, Greta, cutting my hair so that I could wear an afro during this same 1967 visit.

Almost getting to Cuba and Mexico, but not quite. Did make it to Santa Barbara, CA.

Coming down with the flu one fall day while playing chess with my uncle Henry and being sicker then I remembered being since having pneumonia.

Dried peppers hanging on the kitchen door. Tomato wine/vinegar brewing in a big vat in the kitchen. My mother’s garden under the mulberry tree where she grew green beans. The moldy mulberries under the tree later in the year.

Building an igloo in the backyard one winter.

Pearl walking around the living room on the furniture without touching the floor when my mother wasn’t home.

Nikki Giovanni staying at our house during the 1967 Black Arts Conference.

From my journal:

12/22/67 the winds blowing dry seed on the tree of heaven outside.

1/4/1967 gray, rustle, wind, snow makes more gray. Creaks and roar, grey, grey sky.Everything is quiet. the wind sounds cold. Even the drip of the faucet is cold. Creaks and breath of wind.snow like cover of cold. pale blue summer sky over grey cold.

2/6/1968 i don’t know what’s wrong. every so often i sink into one of these things. deep down loneliness. loneliness fills you empty. Apart in a separateness or a separateness is in me. it’s felt inside my stomach. a lump of muscus won’t digest. sits inside me. floats inside my emptiness… apartness is inside me – is me. me is separate. apart. alone. it’s dark. cold/hot. Still. i stand in a vacant field, large clear area of land off Warren Avenue. The moon is out. i stand in center and watch the moon.

4/4/2968 it’s beautiful weather out. warm. windy. you should be in the country. Tonight i a. type 2 stories, one for Billy Thomas, b. do drawing, guess i’d best do the drawing first, correct – part of armor, maybe college type thing. yeah. that’ll be interesting. go to museum at 4 or 4:30. Eat when? ¿Quien sabe? i have the terrible feeling none of this is going to come out.

4/21/1968 tell him i cried. sat on porch wanting him to come back. look out the window wanting him to take me with him. i didn’t just not want to go home, i wanted to go with him.

“When you are singing
Daily alone
a bird comes
and joins you”

Drawing Bones

August 16, 2012Biography, sepia saturdayKristin

In 1968 I was a senior art student at Wayne State University in Detroit. Don’t remember why I did this drawing combining a skeleton and a coat of armor from the Detroit Institute of Art. The other two sketches are of a student posing with the skeleton.

Victoria McCall interviews Eleanor Roosevelt in 1945

August 15, 2012Allen, Detroit, News Items, Newsletters#McCallsKristin

This article is from my Grandmother, Fannie Turner Graham’s scrap book. It was printed in the Detroit Tribune on November 24, 1945. Victoria’s parents, James and Margaret McCall, were the owners and operators of the Tribune. My grandmother wrote the date and my mother wrote the identifying information.

The postcard on the left shows the Book-Cadillac Hotel, where the interview took place, in the 1940.

Part of the article is missing. I think my grandmother trimmed one side and part 2 was on the other side. I combined her pink article with a scan from online.

You can read more about the Tribune and the McCalls in this post “James Edward McCall, Poet and Publisher“.

Biking at Old Plank Road, 1962

August 10, 2012Cleages, sepia saturday#bike, #Doris Graham Cleage, #me, #Old PlankKristin

I was 16 and my mother was 39 in this photograph. We were getting ready to go bike down Old Plank Road. I was bare footed. We used to bike past the neighbors on the hill and down to a pond that was small and weedy. Sometimes we skated there in the winter. The neighbors had two big dogs that were often outside and we would peddle fast to get past before the dogs got to the road. We’d take enough time riding to the pond and looking at the water for them to go back up and then we’d repeat the ride back to the house. The dogs never got to us.

I got my first bike on my 8th birthday. It was a basic, blue bike. I didn’t know how to ride and it took me so long to learn that my mother finally threatened to give the bike to my cousin Barbara if I didn’t learn how to ride. I don’t remember anybody holding the bike and running with me. I do remember practicing in the driveway of the house on Chicago until I learned to ride. At that point I only rode around the block.

When I was older, I remember going bike riding all around the neighborhood with my cousins, Dee Dee and Barbara. We rode in the street, which I wasn’t supposed to do. My sister and I used to go bike riding too but we usually had a destination – the library or my grandmother’s house. I lost that bike when I left it unchained outside of a store on W. Grand Blvd. We were on the way home from the Main Library. Later it was replaced by a three speed bike. I had that one up at Old Plank until we sold the place and then I had it in the Detroit. It too was stolen when my husband left it unchained on a porch one night.

When we lived in Idlewild, from 1986 to 2007, I used to ride my Uncle Hugh’s old bike. It had a bigger than average seat which made it more comfortable for me to ride, however it was old and had been through a lot and the tires were sort of crooked. I enjoyed riding it the 4 miles around the lake and for one memorable 5 mile ride into town with my daughter, Ife. She was going to work so she had 6 hours between her rides. I had to turn around and ride 5 miles back. If the streets around my house here were flat and I didn’t see rottweilers trotting down the street alone, I would get a bike and ride now. I know I am not going to take a bike to a park to ride.

My Swimming Career – 1962

August 8, 2012Biography, memoriesKristin

Photo from the Northwestern Colt, the school newspaper.

Both the Olympic swimming events and the insane hoopla about Champion Gabby Douglas’ hair took me back to my own swimming experience. I first joined the Swim Club as a freshman so that I could spend more time swimming. I took a regular swim class every semester and we swam everyday, except Friday, when we went across the street to the Lucky Strike Bowling Alley and bowled so that the regular gym class could use the pool. We also stayed after school for an hour doing more focused swimming. I didn’t enjoy competing, but I did like swimming so I stayed after the club became a team. I usually swam only in the relay but sometimes all the best swimmers would be ineligible due to bad grades and I would have to swim in a race. One time I came in second place. There were only two in that race. There was one girl in my class who made negative comments about my hair during the three and a half years I swam. I wish that I had known more ways to wear my natural hair instead of just pulled back in a little bun, which she kept telling me, looked like a shredded wheat biscuit. During my senior year our regular coach left to have a baby and the new coach turned the team into a synchronized swimming club. I didn’t much like her and I did not like synchronized swimming at all, so for that last semester of high school, I did no swimming.

N is for North Martindale

August 7, 2012Biography, Family History Through the Alphabet, HousesKristin

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. It takes us back to North Martindale, kitty corner from my first apartment.

As soon as I reach a letter for which I have no street, I am going to post a chart of where I lived and for how long. From the time I left home until Jilo was a bit over 1 year old I must have been getting ready for this series by moving every 3 to 8 months.

Today I will write about living at Brother John’s. Brother John and my husband, Jim, were both members of the Republic of New Africa and they all called each other “brother” and “sister”. We were there from October 1970 to March 1971, about 6 months. Bro. John lived in the downstairs flat, we lived in the upstairs flat. We didn’t have the whole flat though. He had his office in what would have been the front room. The dining area was empty, sort of a buffer zone. We had the kitchen, bathroom and three bedrooms. I made one of the bedrooms into a living room. The other two were bedrooms. At one point Jim, and I cleaned out the basement in hopes that Bro. John would move his office down there. He didn’t. Even cleaned out the basement was not very inviting.

Back in 1970 the upstairs flat had a porch where that door walks out into air. Next door where the vacant lot is now there was a small, single family house where 5 very wild children and their parents lived.

Some of the things that I remember… the wild kids next door who shot a BB gun into the house. Because we were living a charmed life, nobody was in the room. I remember the pear tree outside of the back porch and that I never picked any pears.

I remember once when Jim was out of town somebody, a community organizer, was shot to death when he answered his door. This disturbed me so much that I put Jilo in her stroller and walked from my house to Miriam’s house on Lee Place. I just didn’t want to be home alone. It was 2.8 miles. It was night and the only part of the walk I remember is that I didn’t walk down 12th but went down the next street over because there were so many people out on 12th.

Approximate route I took from N. Martindale to Lee Place on foot – 2.8 miles.

I remember when three friends and I started a food and baby co-op. We went to Eastern Market, a farmer’s market, early Saturday morning, babies on our backs. We bought cases of greens and sweet potatoes and eggs. We divided them up. We also took turns watching each others babies for a few hours a week so we could get a bit of free time. I can’t remember what I did with my free hours. The co-op eventually fell apart but Martha started a co-op with a La Leche League chapter and I started one at my father’s church.

Some random memories. going away one day and leaving the little washing machine I had earned by babysitting, running. It over flowed and dripped down to Bro. John’s kitchen below. Having the flu while Jim was out of town. Getting Jilo to sleep through the night only to have that go for naught when we visited my sister in Atlanta and she started waking up through the night to nurse again. And last, Bro John finding the dynamite in the attic and being incredulous that anybody would be so dumb as to store dynamite in a house that was being watched by the police and the FBI because it belonged to a member of the Republic of New Africa. I could not fault his logic. At that point we moved to the horrible house on Monterey . Luckily Jilo had no idea what was going on during these times. She probably still doesn’t, unless she is reading these posts.

My Pole Vaulting Daughter

August 3, 2012sepia saturdayKristin

Tulani pole vaulting for Indiana State University.

My daughter Tulani pole valuting. She was one of the first to take it up when the event was added to college women’s track in 1996 as an exhibition event. In 1997 NCAA recognized and scored women’s pole vault as a regular meet event. She competed as a part of Central Michigan University’s Track team where she held the school record and was ranked in the top three Divsion I women vaulters in the state of Michigan. Tulani also pole valuted as a member of the Indiana State track team where this picture was taken.

M is for Monterey

August 3, 2012Biography, Family History Through the Alphabet, Houses#black conscience libraryKristin

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 can’t believe we are half way through the alphabet already and that I have found a street for every letter so far.

______________

Today I’m going to write about living on Monterey Street on the west side of Detroit. The house was between LaSalle Blvd and 14th street and in the same area as the Black Conscience Library’s Linwood location. Unfortunately by the time I lived here the library had moved to Grand River which was a bus ride away. Living here is one of those situations where I am thankful we made it out of there unscathed. It included living with supposedly reformed junkies who turned out not to be, a wandering wife, explosives in the basement and finally a beating of the wife. That was the day I left that house never to return.

The house as it looks today on Google maps. It wasn’t in quite that bad shape in 1971.

I’m holding Jilo on the way to my sister’s graduation from Spellman College during the time we lived on Monterey.

This song always reminds me of that couple and the spring of 1971.

Cleage Printers

August 1, 2012Carnival of Genealogy, Cleages, Family History Through the Alphabet#Albert B. Cleage Jr, #Henry Cleage, #Hugh Cleage, #Louis Jacob Cleage, #Milton HenryKristin

My uncles, Henry and Hugh Cleage owned and operated Cleage Printers for about a decade, from the late 1950s until the late 1960s. It’s difficult to pinpoint the time they started printing. They published a newspaper called The Metro in 1956. I’m not sure if they printed that themselves or put it together and had it printed elsewhere. On the March, 1960 marriage license for Henry and my mother, he listed his occupation as Printer/Lawyer. The plant, as we called it, was located behind Cleage Clinic at 5385 Lovett, near McGraw on Detroit’s Old West Side. Henry was an attorney and Hugh worked at the Post Office before they started printing. I don’t know if either of them had any experience printing before that. I asked my husband, who was also a printer for a number of year without much prior experience. He said it’s not that hard to learn while doing. Maybe armed with “In business with a 1250 Multilith” they were able to set up shop and learn on the job. I still have the book. Uncle Louis, the doctor, put in the start up money for the press. Later when they had to upgrade Henry said that family friend, Atty. Milton Henry, contributed that money.

According to the memories of family friend, Billy Smith and my aunt Anna, they went into business for themselves because they wanted the independence of being their own boss and Henry had always been interested in printing. They had several long term employees and a number of young people who worked there for a short period of time. My aunt Barbara worked there for awhile. My sister and I worked there the summer I was 16. I learned to run the small press and use the Varityper described below. I remember Ronald Latham keeping up a running story about being a Venusian now living on Earth. Henry kept our first weeks wages of $10 to make it like a real job. He was supposed to give it to us at the end of the summer, when we stopped work but we never saw that $10 and we didn’t bring it up. If we had, I’m pretty sure we would have been paid.

They made their money by printing handbills for neighborhood markets. In addition to that they printed up flyers, newsletters, magazines for various radical black groups, materials for the Socialist Workers Party and the Detroit Artist’s Workshop. The printing plant was a place where people came to find discussion of the issues of the day and in the 1960s there were plenty of issues to discuss. My Uncle Henry loved to hold forth on a variety of topics and his arguments were always well thought out and convincing. Hugh didn’t talk a lot but he would have something to put in, maybe just a quiet shake of his head over what Henry was saying. If Louis came back he would join in with his sarcastic comments and distinctive laugh.

Various flyers printed at Cleage Printers

Four pages from the October 6, 1962 issue of The Illustrated News. They printed it on pink newsprint left over from the market handbills so it was often called the “pink sheet”. My uncles published it from 1961 to 1964. It started off as a weekly and eventually went to bi-weekly and consisted of 8 pages of commentary about local and national events of concern to the black community. My father wrote many of the article. My uncle Louis had a biting, humor column called “Smoke Rings” on the back page.

In addition to grocery store circulars and race literature, Cleage Printers printed a variety of other alternative materials, such as a series of poetry books for the Artist’s Workshop in Detroit, headed by John and Leni Sinclair.

I found this at The Ann Arbor Library. You can see that Cleage Printers is mentioned as a part of the Trans-Love Engeries Unlimited co-operative in the 2nd line of the 3rd column, of this April 1967 copy of “The Sun”. I wonder that I never heard about that.

Sometimes there would be things that had to be collated in the evening and all of us cousins and our mother’s would be down there at night putting whatever it was together. After the 1967 Detroit riot so many stores went out of business that they couldn’t make enough to keep going. Henry went back to law and worked with Neighborhood Legal Services. Hugh held on for another few years, printing for the church and teaching young people how to run the small press. Finally, he too left. I wish in all those photographs that were taken, one or two had been of Cleage Printers in it’s prime. All I have is a photograph I took in 2004 of the way it looks now, deserted and overgrown. I wish I had interviewed and taped Henry and Hugh talking about their experiences.

The building that housed Cleage Printers as it looked around 2007.

This was written as part of the 120 Carnival of Genealogy hosted by Jasia at CREATIVEGENE.

Baseball, Summer of 1922- Sepia Saturday #136

July 30, 2012Cleages, sepia saturday#Albert B. Cleage Jr, #Albert B. Cleage Sr, #Henry Cleage, #Louis Jacob Cleage, #Pearl Reed CleageKristin

I have posted this photograph before as part of my discovery of the numbers on photographs as a means of sorting and dating them. My father’s cousin, Theodore Page, is ready at the bat while my father, “Toddy” seems oblivious to the fact that he could have his head knocked off when Theodore goes to hit the ball. The photograph was taken in the summer of 1922, probably at Belle Isle, an island park in Detroit. The day was an outing for the extended Cleage family.

My uncle Henry loved baseball and often described the game in terms that made it seem like a work of art or a piece of music. My mother’s mother used to listen to games on the radio. I never liked playing the game – I could not hit the ball. I didn’t like watching it, compared to basketball, baseball games seem so long and slow moving.

the+whole+fmily — Another photograph from the same outing. Starting from the left, are two headless women and I don’t know who they are. The little girl is my Aunt Barbara, next to her is my Uncle Hugh, Uncle Louis, Uncle Henry, Theodore Page (who looks like he has a double), my uncle Henry’s daughter, Ruth, who is holding the same ball the catcher is holding in the action shot. Behind them are, an unknown man, my great grandmother Celia Rice Cleage Sherman, her son Jacob, my father Albert “Toddy”, three people I don’t know then my grandfather Albert B. Cleage Sr. In the background are some other people. I don’t know who they are.

Some other posts about this day at the park:
Albert and Pearl (Reed) Cleage
More information about Yesterday

Finding Eliza

Family history blog