I decided to write about my maternal grandfather and the church he helped found in 1919, Plymouth Congregational Church. Please click on the images to enlarge them and read the articles below.
My grandparents, Mershell and Fannie (Turner) Graham met in the First Congregational Christian Church in Montgomery, Alabama. They were married there by Rev. Scott on June 14, 1919. After the ceremony, Mershell took his new bride back to Detroit to begin their new life. One thing that would be familiar was the worship service at the newly formed Plymouth Congregational Church.
Fannie and Mershell soon after their marriage in 1919.
When Mershell, migrated to Detroit from Montgomery, AL in 1917, many of his friends, were also leaving. In 1919, nine of them gathered together to form Plymouth Congregational Church. At first they met in members homes and in borrowed and rented spaces. In 1927 they were able to purchase their own building, a former Synagogue. They moved in May 15, 1927.
Plymouth Congregational Church at the corner of Garfield and Beaubien streets on the East Side of Detroit.After church about 1927. Mershell holding my mother Doris, Fannie standing behind Mary V. and Mershell Jr. in front.
Plymouth Congregational Church – September 30, 1928. Detroit, Michigan
Plymouth had been in the building about 1 year when this photo was taken. My grandfather, Mershell C. Graham, is standing behind his daughters, Mary V. and Doris (my mother). Their cousin, Margaret McCall, is standing between them. They are in the front row, towards the left side of center. The minister, Rev. Laviscount, is standing behind Mary V. My grandmother, Fannie, had just given birth to their youngest son, Howard, so she was not able to be there.
An article with some of the history of Plymouth Congregational Church.Mershell Graham’s name was misspelled as “Gardner” above.
My parents met at Plymouth’s youth group. My father was ordained there. In November of 1943, my parents were married at Plymouth by Rev. Horace White. On a visit home to Detroit while we were living in Springfield, MA, I was Baptized there, also by Rev. Horace White.
Invitation to my father’s Ordination.My grandmother Fannie, my grandfather Mershell and my mother Doris. I am standing on the table. I believe it was during this visit that I was Baptized at Plymouth.
Because I attended my father’s church on Sunday’s, I don’t have many memories of sitting in the pews at Plymouth. My memories are of going with my grandfather to fix thing, usually the furnace. My sister and my cousins and I would roam around the empty church while we waited for him to make the repairs.
Plymouth Congregational Church, now Plymouth United Church of Christ, was forced to relocate when the area was urban renewed in order to build the Medical Center in the 1970s. White churches were allowed to remain in the area while black churches were forced to relocate. The new church is located at 600 E. Warren Ave. and continues in use by Plymouth today.
I have kept many journals during my life. Unfortunately I’ve only kept them for short periods of time, sometimes a day, sometimes several months. I have used all sorts of journals and sometimes just plain notebooks. I think that because the pages are spread out in various journals, I should type all the entries into one file on the computer. I could print it out. Or I could take pages from where they are and put them in acid free sleeves in a binder. Right now I’m sure they are not much use to anyone. Even I find it hard to locate information from a particular time and place.
I do have several journals from family members. I have my grandmother Fannie’s Little Book and a big scrapbook. I have my grandfather Mershell’s work notebook. And I have my Uncle Henry’s Diary kept in 1936.
Below are more or less random pages from 4 of my journals from 1967, 1972, 1981 and 2001. I’ve transcribed with some correction of grammar or spelling where it makes it easier to understand.
December 4, 1967 – Bronze pour, junior year Wayne State University. I was 21 years old.
12/4/67
The fire’s green, noisy, can’t hear voices hardly. getting ready to cast – pour. have big cans set up. 2 to do it. Katze (note: the teacher in charge of pour) has visor on. (room) smells dusty, dusty. hard to breath. dirty. sand all over floor. fire flame big, roars, loud – dust – loud dust. Can’t be ready yet. glasses just ran downstairs. sculpt must really get involved in it.
Can even hear roar on steps. Like train. Sounds like burning. Smells like hot metal – no wonder. at other end of room someone works with some tool – makes sparks & higher buzzing noise off and on combines with steady roar. Room covered with white dust didn’t answer – the (maybe the um sound was yes)
They poured and it ran out so had to heat more, spilled it on floor, started fire. Burned 3 folks feet. not badly. Oxygen stored in there. Fireboxes not hooked up! no evacuation of building. Linoleum on floor. Total chaos.(Note: before the spilled hot, liquid metal, everyone thought the floor was cement but it turned out that there was cement looking linoleum.)
man holed up in his house on west side.
February 3, 1976 – Raising rabbits and tomatoes, Simpson County, MS. I was 29 years old.
2-3-76
Fed goat & rabbits twice. pollinated tomatoes & pruned more for transplanting in greenhouse #1. Those need watering. soaking them overnight to get better start. Those with roots do better (& small leaves) than large leaves & no roots. Fill holes with water when transplanting.
Found 2 red tomatoes in #2 when pollinating. found Velma rabbit had ear canker. looked in Rabbit book & called Ruth Shiers about treatment says common & should treat rabbits monthly as precaution. Put Vaseline on it. Need camphophenic to treat it & all others as a …
July 4, 1981 – Trip to Norway. I was 34 years old.
July 3, 1981 friday
Started out a very sunny warm day until after lunch – ended up being cold & RAINY. Went to the theater to see a fairy tale of a princess a would be prince who had to get 3 feathers of a dragon to win her. Very good – even understood a few words. Before it started, a tall man came up & said he should have written a synopsis & did I know the story – then he started telling it to me. (Note: He was the playwrite.) The people who organized this outing, neglected to call in reservations & we had to wait for cancelations, luckily there were some. After we went in the cold rain to get varme polster, pomme frit og ice!(?) It was COLD with dress, bare legs & sandals but a good evening & it’s nice to be back & warm. Paul was at Blinern stop.
Class is harder – ie. lessons are, class remains the same. Spent more time in language lab today. Mary Kate reads at 3,000 words a minute. Now to bed.
July 4, 1981 Saturday
Classes in morning. Sunny day went downtown in afternoon with Joan & Kari. Walked all the way over to St. Olaf’s Church.
Campus party was tonight. Jilo (Note: my 11 year old daughter.) went & stayed until midnight, danced a few dances with a nice Howard student. I went for a moment with little Kari & her mother. It looked like everyone was having a good time. Reminded me of those terrible parties & never danced. it also made me miss Jim.
Went for a long walk with Joan, little Kari, her mother & a lady I can’t remember, who also never liked parties. Walked all over in a different direction, to the stadium.
June 29, 2001 – Train trip home to Michigan from Seattle. I was 54 years old.
June 29, Friday
“This land is your land, this land is my land…”
Woke up in Montana. isolated cabins on the sides of wooded mountains. mountain (rushing streams) line of parked cars in the middle of no where. a deer on the side of the tracks, pine trees, poplar or is it aspen? “Big sky” low clouds.
James, the Chinese steward, had a laugh this morning with the Irish woman across the aisle. He’d thought she’d be Chinese (note: because her name was “Lee”.)… “Robert E. Lee wasn’t Chinese”, she pointed out, a bit peevishly.
I awoke around 7:30 (6:30) Seattle time) yawn. Could have slept longer. Mountains of feathery pines. So close together. The highway right below, a stream leads up, up, up the mountains to a meadow. “I knew the mountains would make you well.” Breakfast of yogurt parfait.
On closer view, what appears to be meadow may be bushes. Least that’s what the one we passed was. Going through open covered tunnels? bridges? Better than the dark holes.
Rock is gray, slate like layers, dirt was mauve this morning. Began taking photos. Why didn’t I do that all along??? What a waste. Oh well. Jilo & ife have bot expressed an interest in cross country travel.
Down the corridor a couple are discussing their vacations & train trips. The rocks do look like the earths bones. I need to use the bathroom…
Are we lower or higher? trees are smaller, fewer. More grass. God’s golf course out there?
Montana high plains. rutted dirt road comes out of fields to the truck. Several piles of dumped household stuff. Irrigation. Houses, small, alone. A man with orange flags. Clouds I could reach out the window and touch. Sage brush again every where. Wonder if it’s like my sage.
April 5, 2004 Shared Journal with my daughter ife. I was 57 years old.
My daughter and I were going to fill this journal up, mailing it back and forth from Idlewild, MI to Seattle, WA. We started it when her twins were 6 months old. We never completed the book.
Monday morning April 5 – full moon 11:04 AM
Waiting until time to leave for Ludington for my first mamogram. Another sunny, cold day. Yesterday I saw a robin on my walk and there was a crocus in the garden. Spring is really here. (my entry from Michigan)
Tuesday 8…….A quick sketch of the Deifenbaccia that is in front of the west window of the living room. it is doing much bettwer since it was repotted inot a larger pot and now that it gets nice strong light. I spend a lot of time watching it grow.
Both Sean and Sydney are finally napping.. they don’t want to be moved from my lap though… cuts down on being able to use this time… (ife’s entry from Seattle)
My father, Jaramogi Abebe Agyeman/Albert B. Cleage about 1975.
I look a lot like my father did when he was my age. I turned 67 in August, 2013. Usually, I hope people will not notice much of what I am going to tell you here, but because it is the 3rd prompt in the “Story of Me, by Me”, I am going to share it. My hair, once sandy, now is grey, rapidly turning white. It’s not as thick as it once was, although it still covers my head pretty well. I have some age spots on hands and face. I’ve got one or two extra chins and 75 extra pounds. My hands are wrinkling up like they’ve been gathered. I’ve got dark circles under my eyes and dark eyelids. I’ve worn my hoop earrings 24/7 since I had my ears pierced at 15 and the earlobes are sagging a little, as is everything else. My eyes are still blue/grey and my brows are still arched. My eye lashes are almost missing. My complexion has a reddish hue.
Me
My feet have calcifications on the achilles tendons from long ago ignoring symptoms I should have paid attention to. Due to the feet going bad, I was unable to continue my fast 4 mile daily walks and put on weight, which I still haven’t gotten rid of. I used to be 5 ft 7 in, now I’m lucky if I’m still 5’6″. Allergies I never had before make my throat, eyes and ears itch when the air is bad or the pollen is high or a cat is around. I have a c-section scar, stretch marks, skin tags, several chin hairs and too many flat moles to count. Any childhood scars have faded away.
I’ve got high blood pressure, high Cholesterol and low thyroid. My eyes are getting worse. I can’t read without glasses and now need them for viewing performances or anything in the distance. My teeth are my own and I have all of them, minus one and the wisdoms. Many have fillings or crowns. I wear 1X or 2X or, even better, one size fits all. I prefer to go barefooted. Never wear heels and dress for comfort. That used to mean jeans and t-shirts, now it mostly means skirts and loose blouses. I’m about to move to only flowing garments. I prefer pictures where I am smiling.
I found this front page of the Springfield Republican for August 30, 1946 – the day I was born – on Genealogy Bank. Click on it to enlarge. You can read my birth story here – Friday’s Child is Loving and Giving.
click to enlarge.
12 Responses to Front Page News – The Day I Was Born
Great minds think alike. I downloaded the front page of the Sydney Morning Herald for the day I was born just this week but I posted it on my Book of Me private blog. I wasn’t as brave as you – my age is no secret but I couldn’t bring myself to share publicly.
Can’t wait to see those later prompts. But it does give me a chance to do other things in between, either related to the Story of Me or all that other stuff I need to do!
I gave it a try and Genealogy Bank doesn’t have any newspapers in my area in my birth year, let alone birth date! Perhaps in the future… Such a great idea!
Awww. Maybe there’s a front page from somewhere nearby? Or for the week you were born? I have lived places that only had a weekly paper and didn’t have any world news, just local things.
I checked the whole state for the whole year. I’m sure that as Genealogy Bank adds papers, one will pop up. Oh, I should check for my hubbs and son though!
Nope. Not for hubbs and son either. Well darn! Guess I could do a national paper like the NY Times or something though. That would give a good idea of world events…
I am the first daughter, born during a thunderstorm in the middle of the night.
I was born at Mercy Hospital in Springfield, Massachusetts, August 30, 1946. My parents arrived there the fall of 1945 when my father was chosen as Pastor of St. John’s Congregational Church. My mother was 23 and my father was 33. Although I was one of the people present in the delivery room, I’ve had to rely on the memories my mother shared with me. My mother was given a wiff of ether as I crowned so she did not see me born. I had a head full of dark hair, enough that a nurse pulled it up into a little pony tail and tied a ribbon around it. The nurse told my mother that all of the dark hair was going to come out and I would have blond hair. She was right. All of that fell out and I had a small amount of blond hair. It would be years before there was enough to pull up in a ribbon. My eyes were blue/gray.My mother said that she was unable to breast feed me because she had no milk. I always felt very sad about this, not so much for me, but because I think that if I could have gone back in time with what I learned about nursing when my own babies were born, I could have helped her make a go of it. After ten days in the hospital, we went home. A member of the church, Reginald Funn, drove us to the parsonage because my parents didn’t have a car until I was 8 years old. Looking at my baby book, there were many visitors and gifts from friends, family and neighbors.
Reginald Funn and car.
Both of my grandmothers came from Detroit to help out. I was the first grandchild on my father’s side and the second on my mother’s side. My maternal grandmother, Fannie Graham, had a cold so she was regulated to washing clothes and cooking and other duties that kept her away from me so I would not catch her cold. My Grandmother Pearl Cleage had the care of me. My mother said that her pediatrician told her not to give me any water because it would make me drink less milk. Below is a letter my Grandmother Pearl wrote home about it below. Poor baby me.
In this letter, Toddy was my father’s family nickname. Louis was his MD brother. Barbara is my father’s oldest sister, left in charge while her mother was in Springfield.
210 King St Springfield Mass Monday 23/46
Dear Barbara,
How are you? How are Gladys and Daddy and the boys?
We have had atime with this baby, the first nights and all last week Toddy and I were up allnighteachnight! She cried and cried and screamed until she would be exhausted and so was I! Last night and today, so far, she has slept a lot better. Before we talked with Louis I’ve put her feedings 3 hours apart, justlastnight because she acted like she would burst open, with crying. This a.m. we got the Bio Lac and are giving her water regularly too and she is acting 100% better!
When I would have given her water before, they told me her stomach would not hold it and food and had me stop her feeding at about 3 ounces, for fear she couldn’t hold it all, not to feed her too much, and Kris just starving to pieces! I did as they told me until I said I was going to talk to Louis because I had never seen a baby eat and be dry and then just act like she was starving to death and never sleep!
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I regret that nobody took any photographs of little me with either of my grandmothers.
Two excerpts from a letter my father wrote home in January. Actually, I did look like him, and more and more so as the years passed until now, if he were still here, we could pass as twins.
January 1, 1947
“…Doris and Kris welcomed in the New Year in their own inimitable way…at home. They got out only once during the holiday…on Christmas day we went to a Turkey dinner at the Funns. We had a tree “for Kris (and Doris) which Kris ignored…disdainfully. Our double-octet went out caroling to the hospital Christmas eve (yes Louis, for the white folks) and came back by and sang carols for us afterwards. Kris listened to them with her usual disdain…and they all agreed that “she is the most sophisticated looking baby they had ever seen!”
“…. She loves to play from 2 until 4 a.m. She had the sniffles for part of one day…but seems to have so far avoided a serious cold…even with us and the rest of Springfield down with Flu, Grip and everything else… She weigh 11:4 (last week) She’s learned to yell or scream or something…and will scream at you for hours if you’ll scream back (Just like M-V) and seems to love it…then after an hour or so…her screaming will shift into a wild crying…and then she must be picked up and played with for several more hours…SHE LOVES ATTENTION…No, mama, we do not let her cry…and her navel seems to be doing O.K. AND SHE DOES NOT LOOK LIKE ME! All reports not withstanding!”
March 18, 1947 – from a letter to my father’s sister, Anna by my mother.
“Kris (with her 2 teeth) says anytime for you all laughing at her bald head – I fear it’ll be covered all too soon with first one thing and then another.”
__________________
March 31, 1947 – From a letter to the Cleage’s from a friend of my parents in Springfield
“Last night at home, Kris had quite a time with her teeth and I think Doris was quite anxious. Reverend Cleage had to leave for Loring before Kris really let go so he didn’t know how much the baby suffered. I know it won’t last long, tho’ for mother says some teeth give more pain than others, but it is soon over with.”
__________________
From an April 7, 1947 letter my father sister Gladys wrote home while visiting Springfield.
“Kris is no good- but cute! Head’s not like the picture – kids! I definitely have no way with babies – I have truly lived!”
________________________
June 29, 1947 (from a letter by my father’s visiting sister, Anna)
“… Doris went to a reception today and I watched Kris. I tricked her, I played some soft music on the radio and waltzed around the room with her a few times, then eased into a rocking chair and first thing she knew she was asleep – so I put her in her crib and the next thing she knew Doris was home waking her to feed her.”
_______________________
I seem to have done fine, as you can see below, with my dirty bare feet I am sitting on the porch with my father’s father and my parents. I started walking at 9 months and my first words were – “Bow wow.” soon followed by “Some manners if you please!” My mother said that people didn’t usually understand what I was saying when I came out with that.
My paternal grandfather, Dr. Albert B. Cleage Sr. sitting on the railing. My mother, Doris Graham Cleage, holding me. My father Rev. Albert B. Cleage Jr. Summer of 1947 on the back porch of the house on King street.
You can read the front page of the Springfield Republican for the day I was born here.
I am the first daughter, born during a thunderstorm in the middle of the night.
I am the one walking to school whistling when the woman turns around and says “A whistling girl and a crowing hen always come to a no good end.”
I am one of the cousins squashed into the back seat singing on the way to and from our grandparents.
I am the six year old sick with pneumonia, upstairs in bed for months.
I’m the 12 year old elementary school graduate, out of school early and throwing snowballs with my friends.
I’m the double promoted 7th grader without friends who knows how many minutes left in each school day.
I’m the high school student longing for escape.
I’m the girl standing on the sidelines at Youth Fellowship dances.
I’m 19 and hopelessly in love.
I am 20 with a broken heart.
I’m the printmaker using found zinc scraps for my pieces.
I’m 23, alone and in labor with my first child, in a large dark house, waiting.
I’m a woman, carrying, laboring, birthing and nursing.
I’m the city girl milking goats, chopping wood and plucking chickens.
I’m the 35 year old mother of 5 dancing around the kitchen with my young son.
I’m the 45 year old mother of 6 walking four fast miles around the lake, ignoring my aching achilles tendons.
I’m the granma with bad feet making my way around the track.
I’m the child and the woman moving from place to place.
I’m a woman who has been with this man forty eight years.
I’m a gardener without a garden, a water woman without water and a sewer who rarely sews.
I’m an artist and a writer and a teacher.
I’m a feeler trying to be invisible.
I’m the one the ancestors come through.
I’m reading the paper with my mother. 1962, Old Plank Road. Near Wixom, MI.
This is a small undated Polaroid snap shot. I dated it by looking at other photos from that year that were dated. It was probably taken in the summer or early fall. I was 16 and would be a high school sophomore in the fall of that year.
What were we reading about? I decided to look up what happened during 1962. It was an eventful year. Lot’s of above ground nuclear tests; countries in Africa and the West Indies gaining their freedom; Civil Rights demonstrations in Albany, GA; the Berlin wall; Thalidomide; the Cuban missile crisis and George Wallace winning the governorship of Alabama are a few stories we could have been reading.
In February of 2013 I did post about reading the newspaper on a Sunday morning Reading The Newspaper – 1962. Appears my mother and I did a lot of tandem newspaper reading.
My grandfather, mother, sister and I were spending several weeks at my Uncle Louis Cleage’s cottage in Idlewild. We made a day trip to Ludington, on Lake Michigan, about 30 miles from Idlewild. We had walked out to the light house, which was no longer in use. 1956 was the year I wore glasses.
Pearl, Poppy and me. Ludington, Michigan 1956.
My mother, Pearl, me.
In this picture, taken facing land but on the same pier, you can see how the cement walk slopes down toward the lake. There was a flat part down by the water where fish had washed up and they were flopping around trying to get back to the water. My sister Pearl and I climbed down and were throwing the fish back in the water until our grandfather noticed and told us to come up and stop it before we fell in the water. We did it but we were not happy about it.
Poppy rowing on Lake Idlewild.
Patio in front of the 2 cottages. My mother, Pearl and me. Notice the face in the trees to the left. It looks like my grandmother in her younger days. Is it really there?
In 1968 when I was an art student drawing all the time, I often went to the Detroit Institute of Art to sketch in the Entrance Hall where two long rows of knight’s armor stood against the walls. They are now enclosed in glass cases, but at the time they were just out there, standing along the walls.
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In 1997, my youngest son Cabral and I took a train trip to Albuquerque, New Mexico from our home in Idlewild, MI. We went to visit another homeschooling family. I had met the mother, Sandra Dodd, online in the AOL Homeschooling forum. Other homeschoolers in our area of Lake County, Idlewild were few and far between. I thought it would be interesting to actually meet in real life one of the people I spent so much time (and money in those days) visiting with online. When unschooler Sandra invited us out, we went. We were there almost a week and saw a inactive volcano, played miniature golf, watched videos and went to a science museum. What stands out in my mind the most is the day we visited a museum that had actual items from New Mexico’s early days, including Spanish armor, and they let people try it on. Above you see my son trying out the various items. He even got to go outside for a photograph and in the New Mexico landscape.
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This weeks prompt for Sepia Saturday is Boudica, a freedom fighter for the local British tribes against the Roman invaders, this makes my choice of Robert Williams all the more relevant. Robert Williams died in 1996. He was author of the book “Negro’s With Guns” and an advocate of self defense for black people. He was from North Carolina. He published his newsletter The Crusader for years. The logo was a little figure of a crusading knight.
I remember a letter from my mother describing Robert Williams picketing the local newspaper, The Lake County Star, with a photograph of him wearing his WW I German helmet. Unfortunately, I can’t find it. I did find a description of the picket by Father Joe Fix given at Robert Williams funeral. Father Joe was the Priest at St. Ann’s Catholic Church in Baldwin, MI where Robert’s wife, Mabel, was a member. Below are his remarks. You can see the full transcript of the funeral by clicking the title.
I first met Robert almost nine years ago. I was invited to a party for the priest who had preceded me at St. Ann’s. Father Ray was saying good-bye to his people. I’ll never forget he singled out Robert and he looked at Robert and he said, “Robert, thank you for being the conscience of Lake County.” I never forgot that. It was only last week that Father Ray came by, and he was going to help a celebration and he said, “Robert is the first prophet that I have ever met.” The first prophet. I wanted to add, in my book, he was the first martyr that I ever met, because Robert had a sincere table appetite for news and he would watch all of Rush Limbaugh. Anybody who listens more than two seconds to Rush is definitely a martyr. I remember walking Downtown Baldwin. It’s not very big, and I seen this character on the main street. And he had this funny helmet on, with this red light bulb on top. It was flashing, and he had four-sided sandwich board, not two sided. And I walked up and it was Robert. He was protesting the local rag because it refused to print his letter to the editor. Guess what? The letter was printed the next week. I remember going to one of my first meetings involved with a new superintendent, and Robert was there, voicing his displeasure with the counselors of the high school because they were not reaching the needs of our youth in that county. I remember going to courthouse and sometimes supporting people I knew that were on trial, and Robert was there. He was there much more often than I was, and much more vocal… standing up for victims of an unjust system To me, Robert truly was Prophet. When I was a child, I always thought of Prophet as someone who foretold the future. Robert did that. But the main job of a prophet, as I’m growing up, is to speak out against injustice; whether it was Isiah or Jeremiah called by God to speak to the Jewish people. And he mentioned they were killed, but that was their job. Whether it was Ghandi who answered the call in India, or Nelson Mandela in South Africa. But it was Robert Williams who answered the call in Monroe, NC. He answered the call to speak out against the unjust system and people that would not let children swim in a pool because they happened to be a different color. He spoke out against the injustice that would allow a man to protect his wife, his children, his property. And even though he was exiled, he spoke, from Cuba, and as far away as China, against the injustice of the system that would not allow someone to be free. I believe that God gave us the gift of Robert Williams to challenge us to be Prophet, and if not to be Prophet, to
Robert and Mabel Williams.
support prophets. I really believe that. I believe that we need to answer the call to continue to speak out against racism and sexism… and maybe when we do, people of different cultures and races can get together and share food and laugh together, cry together, but especially learn to dream together. We need to speak out against the injustice of violence and war. An exorbitant amount of our tax money is spent to create the largest military operation in the whole world. And maybe when we speak out against the injustice, there will be money to teach our children to take care of our elderly and to protect our land. We need to speak out against the injustice of greed. There’s a greater chasm now between the rich and the poor.. we’re losing our middle class. And maybe when we continue to reach out and speak against the injustice, all of God’s children will be able to enjoy the gifts from God. We come here today to say thank you for the gift of Robert who answered the call to be Prophet. I will never forget (and I really believe that Mabel is Prophetess, right along with Robert), I will never forget on the day that Robert died. Mabel and I were praying over him, and afterwards, she said these marvelous words, “He really did make a difference.”
For several years after we moved to this house, a scene from my past would come to me every time I was getting ready to brush my teeth. I would see a couple that modeled for my life drawing class. he was white, short with longish, almost white, blond hair. She was black, brown skinned with an afro. We were at a small demonstration on campus. Their two daughters, in my memory they were about 8 and 6 with curly afros, coloring between their parents. The woman and I smile at each other. And then the scene is gone.
This post was written for the 5th and newly reborn Carnival of African American Genealogy (CoAAG), hosted by Luckie Daniels of Our Georgia Roots and Our Alabama Roots and founder of the facebook community African-American Genealogy & Slave Ancestry Research (AAGSAR).
My grandparents, Mershell and Fannie (Turner) Graham met in the First Congregational Christian Church in Montgomery, Alabama. They were married there by Rev. Scott on June 14, 1919. After the ceremony, Mershell took his new bride back to Detroit to begin their new life. One thing that would be familiar was the worship service at the newly formed Plymouth Congregational Church.
Great minds think alike. I downloaded the front page of the Sydney Morning Herald for the day I was born just this week but I posted it on my Book of Me private blog. I wasn’t as brave as you – my age is no secret but I couldn’t bring myself to share publicly.
I figure I’m still the same age, if I tell or not. Unless I can find that time machine LOL.
Where is that flux capacitor when you need it?
Exactly!
That is great Kristin. You will enjoy one of the later prompts……
Can’t wait to see those later prompts. But it does give me a chance to do other things in between, either related to the Story of Me or all that other stuff I need to do!
What is interesting is seeing where the prompt takes the discussion within the Facebook group and where it leads individual participants.
I gave it a try and Genealogy Bank doesn’t have any newspapers in my area in my birth year, let alone birth date!
Perhaps in the future… 
Such a great idea!
Awww. Maybe there’s a front page from somewhere nearby? Or for the week you were born? I have lived places that only had a weekly paper and didn’t have any world news, just local things.
I checked the whole state for the whole year. I’m sure that as Genealogy Bank adds papers, one will pop up.
Oh, I should check for my hubbs and son though! 
Nope. Not for hubbs and son either. Well darn! Guess I could do a national paper like the NY Times or something though. That would give a good idea of world events…