Category Archives: Cleages

Louis Cleage & Family – 1880

November 22, 2014Cleages#Louis Cleage, #TennesseeKristin

In 1880 my great grandfather Louis Cleage was 28. His wife Celia (Rice) Cleage was 24. They were farming in Loudon County Tennessee. They had been married for 8 years and were the parents of four children – 7 year old Josie, 5 year old Jacob, 3 year old Henry and 1 year old Edward. Louis’ 20 year old sister, Tennessee lived with them along with 5 year old Louseny. Their 5th child, my grandfather Albert, would not be born until 1882. None of the adults could read or write. The children were too young to attend school.

32686_236972-00701n — The census as it appeared on Ancestry.com.

The 1880 Agricultural Census Schedule that includes Louis Cleage are in poor condition. Parts of it are unreadable because they are blackened. Other parts are pale and blurry making them difficult to read. This is the information I could make out. He rented his land for shares of his crops. He had 15 tillable acres and 5 acres in woodland and forest. The farm, buildings, land and fences were worth $150. Farm implements and machinery were worth $125. The livestock was worth $125. He had 1 milch cow and produced 25 lbs of butter in 1879. I was unable to read if he had any swine, chickens, mules or horses, I hope he did. He had no working oxen. He planted 25 acres of Indian corn, yielding 100 bushels. He planted 5 acres of oats, yielding 25 bushels and 5 acres of wheat that yielded 25 bushels.

As I was going over the 1880 Agricultural Census for Louis Cleage, I noticed some differences with my 2X great grandfather on my mother’s side, Joe Turner in Lowndes County, AL. When I compared population censuses, farmers who owned enough land to be included in the agricultural census were further apart in Lowndes County. There were many farm laborers enumerated in between. The farmers in Loundon County TN were right next to each other in the population schedule. Farm holdings were also smaller in Loudon County than in Lowndes County, AL. I may go into this more in a future post.

By 1991, The Cleages were back in Athens, McMinn County. This post Louis Cleage – Work Day Wednesday follows Louis through the following decades as he worked in the mines of Birmingham, AL and as a railroad hand.

Hugh Fishing At the Meadows

November 7, 2014Cleages, sepia saturday#Hugh Cleage, #MeadowsKristin

I have used some of this information before but the photographs are all first timers.

These photographs were taken at “The Meadows” near Capac, St Clair County, Michigan around 1939.

My Aunt Gladys remembers that her father Dr. Albert B. Cleage Sr and a bunch of fellow doctors bought it. It was to be a place where everyone could get away and the kids could meet and play… big house on the property with a porch that wrapped around 2/3 of the house… dances on the porches… near Capac Michigan… they sold it later. She kind of remembers parties on the porch… a getaway other than the Boule or Idlewild … her brothers and their friends spending a couple weeks at the meadows during the summer and brother Louis packing the provisions.

Hugh at meadows — “Hugh at Meadows” fishing with a homemade stick pole. I wonder if he caught the fish on the string below with that pole.

Hugh fish meadows 7:1939 — This photograph of Hugh was also taken at the Meadows in July 1939.

Some entries about the Meadows from Hugh’s brother Henry’s diary, several years earlier in 1936.

August 29 Meadows
Arrived at meadows at about 7:30 (getting dark) Had seen Velma before I left – I have her ring now – after had gotten our trunk in – we went down to creek – other’s brought some wood up and started a fire – I stayed down watching the creek and the farm – as it was dark they worried and came and got me.

August 30 Meadows
Sunday Richard’s club gave a picnic – we played ball off and on all day. Daddy came out and brought Bobby – wrote two letters – Velma and Carolyn. Bobby deliver them.

Last night when the others were in bed Morrow, George, Paul, Hugh and I sat around camp fire and sang – Nice but a little chilly (Benard’s parents came out)

Henry Cleage at the Meadows in July 1939.

August 31 Meadows
After breakfast some of us went swimming – after that we all worked on a raft till dinner – chopped heavy logs from a fallen tree – tied together with grape vines and barrel wire – after dinner went & christened it “Frogy Bottom” & launched it – it immediately sank – logs were too heavy – were we mortified – the same group sat around the campfire again sang after dark.

September 1 Meadows
“Gee! but I’m blue, and so lonely, I don’t know what to do, but dream of you!” (a song I like to sing out here)

Boys are playing horse shoes just after dinner – we fished and swam today – George caught a pretty large bass and I, trying to throw him across river to Morocco – threw him in.

I like to get on the hill and look down towards the creek in the evening and watch – The other nite I was there, Morocco, George, Hugh and Benard were chopping wood. Louis and Paul were sitting further down the hill with their arms full of wood – It was almost nite – The faint light from the west gave the scene a surreal quality – The grass uneven, the rolling land, the giant trees, the creek, all outlined in this light and the boys too reminded me of an illustration in the book “Tom Browns School Days.”

2014.10W.05 — To see more Sepia Saturday posts, CLICK!

My Aunt Barbara Colorized – 1943

October 30, 2014Cleages, Photographs#Barbara Cleage MartinKristin

Last week I had several photographs of my Aunt Mary V. colorized. This week I have a colorized photo of my father’s sister, Barbara Cleage Martin. This photo is printed on thick, off white paper. I believe one of the Cleage photographers took and developed the photo. Which family member, I don’t know. It was taken in 1943 when she was 23 years old.

Barbara colorized blog — Colorized photo. Click photos to enlarge.

A photo taken the same day that wasn't colorized. — A photo taken the same day that wasn’t colorized.

A Stagecoach On A Trip West

October 9, 2014Cleages, sepia saturdayKristin

As I went through photographs of vehicles trying to decide which to use for the stagecoach prompt, I finally remembered that I did have a stagecoach photograph in my Cleage family photographs. I used this before along with other photographs from a trip my grandparents made out West during the 1950s. I cannot make out the writing on the side of the coach because when I blow it up, the photo is a bit blurry, as though the photographer did not hold quite still. Looking at the building on the right, which seems to be a false front with platforms and such in the back, I surmise that this was a movie set. If only I had noticed these photographs during my grandmother’s life time and asked her to tell me about the trip! Alas, I did not.

My stylish grandparents - Albert and Pearl Cleage. He is wearing the rakish white hat and she is wearing the stylish black hat, with a feather. — My stylish grandparents – Albert and Pearl Cleage. He is wearing the rakish white hat and she is wearing the stylish black hat.

To see more photographs from this same trip, Trains – My Grandparent’s Mystery Tour.

Dunbar Hospital Article – 1995

October 7, 2014Cleages, Detroit#Albert B. Cleage SrKristin

More about Dunbar Hospital which was recently saved from being sold at auction when the it was decided to let the owners pay all back taxes, fines and water bill. The article seems to be based on an interview with my aunt, Barbara Cleage Martin/Cardinal Nandi.

The sign on front lawn reads:

Dunbar Hospital: Michigan Historic Site.

At the time of World War I, health care for black Detroiters was inferior to that available for whites. Black physicians could not join the staffs of Detroit’s white hospitals. On May 20, 1918, thirty black doctors, members of the Allied Medical Society (now the Detroit Medical Society) incorporated Dunbar Hospital, the city’s first non-profit community hospital for the black population. It also housed the first black nursing school in Detroit. Located in a reform-minded neighborhood, this area was the center of a social and cultural emergence of the black residents of the city during the 1920s. In 1928 Dunbar moved to a larger facility and was later renamed Parkside, operating under that name until 1962. In 1978 the Detroit Medical Society, an affiliate of the National Medical Association, purchased the site for their administrative headquarters and a museum.

You can read more about Dunbar Hospital in previous posts at these links A Speech on the Graduation of the first class of nurses, Births, Deaths, Doctors and Detroit, Part 2,Dunbar Hospital 1922 and 2014. You can read about this building being auctioned in September 2014 here Detroit’s first black hospital hits auction…

And here is an article from The Michigan Citizen about the Dunbar Hospital being saved. Let’s hope something positive is done with it now. Saving the Dunbar.

Reading Mad Magazine at Old Plank

October 2, 2014Cleages, sepia saturday#Hugh Cleage, #Pearl CleageKristin

My uncle Hugh, cousin Warren and sister Pearl in the living room at Old Plank.

Unfortunately Warren was not reading the Saturday Evening Post in this photo, he is reading a Mad Magazine. For several years I remember copies being around the house. Such a crazy magazine.

By searching online I was able to find a copy of the cover of this issue. It is dated October 1962. The copy in the picture above looks pretty new. Everybody seems to be wearing cool weather clothes so it could well be October of 1962. Warren and Pearl were both high school freshman in 1962. Hugh was printer/owner of Cleage Printers.

Old Plank was the farm house on two acreas that my family owned near Wixom, Michigan. We spent as much time as we could there and were often joined by other family members who also made the short drive from Detroit.

You can read more about Old Plank in these posts:

Playing Poker at Old Plank

Picking Beans at Old Plank

Biking at Old Plank

2014.09W.06 — For more Sepia Saturday, CLICK!

Dunbar Hospital Again

September 12, 2014Cleages, Detroit#Albert B. Cleage Sr, #Dunbar HospitalKristin

I saved this article from the Detroit Free Press years ago during the 1980s, because my grandfather, Dr. Albert B. Cleage Sr was one of the founding doctors of Dunbar Hospital and the article featured my aunt and cousins. By August 2014, Dunbar was being auctioned for unpaid taxes, after being closed up for years. I should have written the date on it. Click each article to enlarge so that you can read.

dunbarcleage — Dr. Ernest Martin, Warren Evans, Anna Cleage Shreve and her daughter Dr. Maria Shreve Benaim.

You can read more about Dunbar Hospital in previous posts at these links A Speech on the Graduation of the first class of nurses, Births, Deaths, Doctors and Detroit, Part 2, Dunbar Hospital 1922 and 2014. You can read about this building being auctioned in September 2014 here Detroit’s first black hospital hits auction…

And here is an article from The Michigan Citizen about the Dunbar Hospital being saved. Let’s hope something positive is done with it now. Saving the Dunbar.

Signs From On High – Wayne State University

July 22, 2014Cleages, sepia saturday#Detroit, #Wayne StateKristin

Here is a photograph including 3 signs from the early 1940s and a rough sketch of the same area that I did in 1968. Both were taken from upper floors on Wayne State University buildings looking on Cass Ave. I did the sketch from an upper floor of State Hall. I believe that the photo was taken from Old Main, (the only tall building facing that direction on campus at the time), by my uncle Henry Cleage while he was a student at Wayne.

After looking on Google maps, I no longer think this was taken from Old Main, looking down Cass. I wonder where it was taken from because that is definitely the Macabee building.

cityscape2 — Photograph taken from Old Main in the early 1940s

The Macabees building on the upper left corner use to hold the Detroit Board of Education. My husband and I went and picketed there the first day we met, in support of the Northern high school student boycott in the spring of 1966. You can read more about that in I Met My Husband in the Library.

cityscape - sketch complete — Very rough sketch from about 1968.

Dunbar Hospital 1922 & 2014

July 21, 2014Cleages, Photographs#Albert B. Cleage Sr, #Dunbar HospitalKristin

I received some photographs from my friend Historian Paul Lee recently of Dunbar Hospital in Detroit. My paternal grandfather was one of the physicians and founders back in the 1920s. I combined the photo from July 2014 with a photograph from 1922. You can read more about Dunbar Hospital in previous posts at these links A Speech on the Graduation of the first class of nurses, Births, Deaths, Doctors and Detroit, Part 2. Click to enlarge the photograph.

I have linked this post to the Family Curator’s World Photography Day post. I participated in 2011 with a post of photographs from Springfield, Then and Now.

Generations of Family Signatures

July 6, 2014Cleages, Grahams, The Book of Me#Albert B. Cleage Jr, #Albert B. Cleage Sr, #Doris Graham Cleage, #Mershell C. Graham, #Pearl Cleage, #Pearl Reed CleageKristin

When I started looking for signatures, I thought it would be easy because I have many letters through the generations. The problem was that they did not sign letters with both first and last names. Some repeatedly used nicknames. I was able to find most signatures by searching through documents – marriage licenses, social security cards, deeds, bills of sale and group membership cards. I finally found my sister’s signature in the return address on an envelope and if I’d thought of it sooner, might have found others in the same place.

missvirginia — The first page from my great grandmother, Jennie Virginia Allen Turner’s memory book. My mother’s, mother’s mother. The first generation born out of slavery and the first literate generation. I believe that she and her siblings all attended schools founded by the Congregational Church in Montgomery, AL after the Civil War.

My great grandfather Howard Turner was born in 1862 in Lowndes County, AL. He was literate but I do not know what school he and his siblings attended. I do not have a photograph of him but I did find his signature on my great grandparents marriage license.

ransom_handwriting — My great grandmother’s brother, Ransom Allen.

marymccall_handwritting — My great grandmother’s oldest sister, Mary Allen McCall.

My paternal grandmother Pearl Reed Cleage. I found her signature on some legal papers because all of the letters I have from her were signed “Mother”. I know that she graduated from high school in Indianapolis, IN and received all of her education in Indianapolis but I do not know the names of the schools. Her signature came from a Marion Indiana Probate record for her older brother’s will in 1946.

My paternal grandfather, Dr. Albert B. Cleage Sr. He attended the Athens Academy in Athens TN, Knoxville College and the Indiana Medical School in Indianapolis, IN. His signature came from his marriage license in 1910.

My maternal grandmother, Fannie Mae Turner Graham. Jennie’s daughter, she was educated in Montgomery, AL at State Normal which was a school from elementary to high school, started by the Congregational Church for Black students. Her signature came from the 1910 Montgomery Census form via ancestry.com. She was an enumerator.

My maternal grandfather Mershell C. Graham. My mother said he taught himself to read. The 1940 census said he finished 8th grade. From Coosada, Elmore Countty, Alabama. His signature came from his WW1 Draft registration card in 1917 via ancestry.com.

My father Albert B. Cleage Jr. His nickname was Toddy and he often signed his letters home Toddy. He attended Wingert elementary, Northwestern High, Wayne State in Detroit and Oberlin University in Ohio. His full signature came from a Purchaser’s recipt in 1957 for a building Central Congregational Church wanted to buy.

Doris Graham Cleage, Fannie’s daughter, my mother was born in 1923 in Detroit, MI. She attended Thomas Elementary School, Barbour Intermediate, Eastern High and Wayne State University in Detroit. Her signature came from a State of Michigan Teacher Oath in 1964. The “Doris” came from a letter home from Los Angeles in 1944.

My younger sister Pearl Michell Cleage is Jennie’s great granddaughter. She attended Roosevelt Elementary School , McMichael Junior High School and Northwestern High School in Detroit. She also Howard and Spellman Universities. Her signature came from the return address on a letter in 1991.

My own signature. I was raised in Detroit and attended Brady and Roosevelt elementary, Durfee and McMichael Junior high and Northwestern High school and Wayne State University, all in Detroit My own signature. Another great granddaughter of Jennie, I was raised in Detroit and attended Brady and Roosevelt Elementary Schools, Durfee and McMichael Junior High Schools, Northwestern High School and Wayne State University, all in Detroit. The bottom signature came from my third daughter’s birth certificate in 1976. The top one came from a deed for the sale of the house on Oregon where I was a witness in 1968.

Finding Eliza

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