Category: Cleages

The Steamer “Eastern States”

Mershell C. Graham

Both of my grandfathers worked on the Great Lakes steam ships. My maternal grandfather, Mershell Graham, worked as a steward for the Detroit & Cleveland Navigation Company when he first came to Detroit in 1917.  He had previously worked in the dining cars of passenger trains. After several years he got a job at Ford Motor Co. where he remained until his retirement 30 years later.

My paternal grandfather, Albert B. Cleage, Sr, worked for the same company in 1909. He was a medical student in Indiana and earned money during the summer by working on the Eastern States cruise ship as a waiter.  The excerpts in this post are from his letters.

Most of the photos and clippings about the Eastern States were found in the Great Lakes Maritime Database.

0047751_028_F_EASTERNSTATESJP2-re1-final_tbnms1ic_1941x958
DTWCLE1904

June 19 1909
I left Indianapolis last night at 7:25. Stayed all night in Hamilton Ohio. Am now in Toledo at 10 AM. Will leave for Detroit 2: 15.

June 20, 1909
Arrived in Detroit yesterday at 4:00 PM, and left for Buffalo via “Eastern States” Star. on which I am at work. Was lucky.  Am well,  found two old school friends on same boat!

June 20, 1909
I am sitting in an old ware-house door on the wharf at Buffalo, – tell me there isn’t an element of romance in my location to say the least. I will be in Detroit again tomorrow and will see many of the boys whom I know there. You can imagine how worn out I am – just stopped traveling this morning, and if the boat ever comes into dock again I shall go immediately to bed. I went uptown to get some things and it went up the Lake and left me, but it will return soon. 

Albert B. Cleage

June 24, 1909
Lawrence has come and we are working together.

0047751_009_F_EASTERNSTATESJP2-re1-final_tbnms1ic_1925x1354

June 27, 1909 (On board the Steamer “Eastern States” – Lake Erie)
This is Sabbath night about 10:00 o’clock and we are about six hours ride out of Detroit and about twelve miles from land in the shortest direction. Surroundings are such as to impress one with his insignificance and emphasize the fact that he is indeed kept by Jehovah’s care. I shall first endeavor to acquaint you with the boat on which I am working. It’s name is “The Eastern States” and runs from Detroit to Buffalo. We leave Detroit one day at 5 PM and arrive in Buffalo the next morning at 8 o’clock, staying in

main

Buffalo all day we leave again for Detroit in the Evening at 5 PM you see we spend one day in Detroit and one in Buffalo. Today we were in Detroit and would it interest you to know how I spent it? Well, if it will interest you; after breakfast was over about 9 am, I went down to our “quarters” (I suppose you have only a faint conception of what that word means – I describe it later.) and slept until 11:30 – served lunch, after which Aldridge and I walked up town for about 2 hours – smoked some cigars, came back to the boat and took a couple of hours more of sleep. So you see I am putting in plenty of time sleeping. This stuff I’m sure does not interest you and I will not bore you longer but as I promised to say something about our “quarters”

It is one large room about 35 x 40 ft. in which are 32 beds – just think of it!! Those beds or better bunks are arranged in tiers of three and I at the present time am sitting on my bed (the top one) and there are two other fellows below me. What ventilation we get comes through six small port holes the diameters of which are about 6 in.

The fellows are a cosmopolitan aggregation, men from everywhere and at any time you can hear arguments and discussions on all subjects – Sensible and nonsensible. There are several students on board – boys from Howard University, Wilberforce University, Oberlin University, Michigan, and Indiana and out of them there are some very fine fellows to know…  I could talk all night about the desirable and the non-desirable features of my Steamboat experience.

This isn't the dining room of the Eastern States but the City of Detroit was a sister ship so it was probably similar.
This isn’t the dining room of the Eastern States but the City of Detroit was a sister ship so it was probably similar.

July 3, 1909 (Enroute to Buffalo, Steamer Eastern States)
Yesterday while Lewis and I were walking up the street in Buffalo, whom did we see standing on the corner (as if lost) but Miss Berry of Indianapolis, her brother and his wife and a Miss Stuart an Indianapolis teacher. Well to be sure we were surprised and they too seemed agreeably so. We spent the day with them taking in the zoo and other points of interest. They visited our boat and we showed them through it. That was experience number one.

Secondly – our boat was in a storm last night I awoke last night amid great excitement in our quarters and found that it was only possible for me to lie in bed with quite a great deal of effort. The old boat was being mightily tossed and driven and the angry waves were rising a high as your house or higher. We were sometimes on top of them and again between them at all times with a feeling that we would every minute be swallowed up by them. Great excitement prevailed. Most of the waiters got up and put on life preservers thinking they would have need of them. I neither was afraid or sick. Nothing serious happened and we arrived in Detroit only a few hours late this morning.

We are tonight taking over to Buffal0 a 4th of July Excursion. A large crowd is aboard. A great number of extra waiters are aboard and an extra amount of noise is present and unfavorable to letter writing accept the effort…

0047751_010_F_EASTERNSTATESJP2-re2-final_tbnms1ic_752x908

After WW2, automobile travel replaced steamer travel and gradually the ships were retired, burned and scrapped. Here is a timeline for the Eastern States from the link above.

  •    Laid down as EMPIRE STATE.
  •     1902, Jan Launched Wyandotte, MI.
  •     1909 Owned Detroit & Cleveland Navigation Co, Detroit, MI.
  •     1930 Owned Detroit & Cleveland Navigation Co., Detroit.
  •     1950 Laid up, Detroit.
  •     1956, Jun 21 Owned Lake Shore Steel Co & Siegal Iron & Metal Co, Detroit.
  •     1956, Dec 12 Burned as spectacle, Lake St. Clair.
  •     1957, May 6 Scrapped.
2013.09W.19
For more Sepia Saturday CLICK!

Ghosting – 1925

gammie_anna_1924
My aunt Anna Cecelia was born January 29, 1925 in Detroit, Michigan. She is the little ghost baby being held by her mother, my grandmother Pearl Reed Cleage.
nana_pela_verso
J.L.C.
Mama and nana peela
barbara_gladys1
Barbbara & Gladys
J.L.C.
gladys_barbara_1924
My aunt Gladys looks like she is either returning or leaving the scene via time travel.
JLC_age_12_verso
Mr. Louis
Cleage
Age 12, – 1925
louis_1924
Mr. Louis Cleage, age 12 wrote names on the backs of the photos.

 

family
Here is a family photograph from about 20 years later. From L to right we have Barbara (who we can actually see.) Henry, Anna, mother Pearl and in the front is Gladys.
2013.09W.17
For more blurry Sepia Saturday posts, CLICK!

A Plea for Peace – April 1, 1948

albert_st.johns
Rev. Albert B. Cleage sitting on the steps of St. John’s Congregational Church around 1948.

Today is the International Day of Peace. My post includes a petition, “A Plea for Peace and for American Democracy” signed by my father, Rev. Albert B. Cleage (later known as Jaramogi Abebe Agyeman) in 1948.  It was printed in The Springfield Union newspaper of Springfield Mass, April 1, 1948 edition.

I have included several pages from a document prepared for the USA Senate titled Report on The Communist “Peace” Offensive.  This includes a list of people who signed the petition in Massachusetts and a few other states.  This happened as the anti-communist era got underway, leading directly into the McCarthy era. You can read more about it here McCarthy Era. As always, click on any picture to enlarge it.

A song written and sung by Victor Jara ends this post. Víctor Jara was a Chilean teacher, theatre director, poet, singer-songwriter and political activist. He was also a member of the Communist Party of Chile. When the USA supported coup against the elected government of Chile took place on September 11, 1973, Victor Jara was taken to the football stadium where his hands were cut off, his guitar smashed and after taunts to play his guitar now, they shot him to death.  To read more, see this link Bruce Springsteen Honors Chilean Folk Hero in Santiago.

4_1_1948_peace_plea

disarm_defeat_opening

peace_offensive_1 peace_offensive_2 peace_offensive_3peace_offense_listList_1

195+minibanner
Click for more peaceful posts.

Its Friday afternoon

This is another letter that my father wrote home to Detroit from Los Angeles when he was studying film in 1944. The photograph of my mother putting a hem in her skirt is also from August, 1944. I’m not sure if this picture was enclosed with this letter.

dorissewing
Putting a hem in a skirt. Aug 1944 in Sunshiny living. Los Angeles

231 South Hobart Blvd. #4
Los Angeles, 7, California
August 18, 1944

Hi Folks:

Its Friday afternoon and I just got home from school, and I thought I’d drop you-all a note on the state of the nation.  My “little” wife is still working. She gets off about five-thirty and comes home by way of the grocery store. Everything is about the same as usual. We’re still at large (out of the poor-house)…but I’ll have to find something to do pretty quick if we’re planning to stay that-a-way! I’m “dickering” with the Los Angeles Church Federation for a “position”. The “boss-Man” is out of town but I’ve filed an application and we’ll discuss the matter further when he gets back in September. It would be a pretty-good job if I can get it…sort of Negro field-worker for the Federation, co-ordinating the community work of the Negro churches… recruiting and training volunteers and organizing programs and clubs and groups and what-have-you. I’ve also applied to the Negro Community-Center, just-in-case.

On the way to school this morning a man picked me up in the safety-zone (big fine looking red-faced white man) in a Packard from here down town…and we got to bulling each other, and it turned out that he’s the Director of Audio-Visual Education for the Los Angeles Public Schools.  Of course he was very happy to meet a real authority in the field…and invited me down to his office to see the experimental work the School System is doing in Moving-picture production.  I’ll go down as soon as I can and see what them there “amateurs” are a trying to do.

School is going along fine…(no grades yet, of course!) Me and the Dean of the School of Religion are having a little long-distance controversy through his secretary.  He thinks I ought to take half of my work in RELIGION…and I think I ought to take all (or almost all) in Cinema.  He has an ace in the hole, however, in as much as I’m registered under the School of Religion and therefore pay only the special fees (Fellowships in religion make up the difference) …However, I’m not going to take half of my work in religion in as much as the religion courses will not contribute to what I’m trying to do!

 SPECIAL NOTE TO LOUIS: If he makes me pay up the REGULAR REGISTRATION FEES I’ll have to wire you for a small loan of $100.00 or so until I can work long enough to pay it back. I think we can “arrange the difference of opinion” without such a drastic step… but with the good-white-folks you can never tell…especially preachers. My wife will divorce me if I have to borrow…but I aint no sentimentalist myself…and so I’m a warnin’ you.

How’s the farm going? How’s Mama getting along? I hear that “Racial-tension” in Detroit is a thing of the past! We’re getting ready to have a riot here…The FEPC has ordered the Street Railways to hire and upgrade Negroes immediately! Maybe I can get a “Riot-Movie”.

Here are some “snaps”- Did you get the ones we sent from San Francisco – I don’t think you ever mentioned them.

194+Minibanner
For more Sepia Saturday offerings, CLICK!

Another Picnic – Summer 1921

Henry, Grandmother with hat, cousin Helen Mullins.
My  5 year old uncle Henry with his hands over his head, far left.  You can just see my grandmother Pearl Cleage at the end of the row on the left, in a dark hat with flowers. I believe that is my grandfather Albert B. Cleage Sr. reclining next to her. Cousin Helen Mullins next with the checkered dress.  Baby Barbara in front of Helen?

Athens, Tennessee, about 1919

athens_1919This is a double exposure that I found in my Cleage photos. It was probably taken by my grandfather since my father was only about 8 or 9 years old. It is in the batch with other photographs taken in Athens, Tennessee around 1919. There seem to be sheets on a clothesline in the foreground. Athens is in the foothills of the Great Smokey Mountains and was my Grandfather Albert B. Cleage Sr’s hometown.  He took his family back for a visit most summers when they were growing up.

There are links to other photos from trips to Athens below.

SS+183+Mini
For more Sepia Saturday posts, click!

A Mystery Rider & A Run-Away Horse

stranger on horse_mexico
Unknown Rider – Mexico 1960s.

#1  During the 1960s my Uncle Louis and various family members and friends traveled to Mexico. They stayed in out of the way hotels and places. Louis became very proficient in Spanish and was happy to talk to any of us in Spanish. Unfortunately, I never was invited on any of these trips. The above photo is an unmarked photo from the Cleage collection. I think it was taken in Mexico. Then again, maybe it was taken in Michigan in the country during the 1940s.

#2  I posted this article about a horse jumping through a windshield in 2011.  Thought I would give it another go.  Victor Tulane was my great grandmother’s sister Willie’s husband. He was a successful Montgomery businessman.

horse+jumps+through+car+windshield

Horse Jumps through Automobile Windshield

Considerable Excitement Attends Runaway On Court Square Tuesday Afternoon.

Much excitement and some damage was the result of a run-away horse crashing into an automobile in front of Alex Rice’s store on Court Square late yesterday afternoon.

The horse, which was pulling a buggy, became frightened on the first block of South Court Street and dashed toward Montgomery Street.  An automobile belonging to Theo Meyer was parked in front of Alex Rice’s and the front feet of the horse went through the wind shield.

Beyond sustaining several minor cuts, the horse was unhurt and the damage done to the automobile, too, was small.

Victor Tulane was owner of the horse.

Montgomery Advertiser – Montgomery, Alabama – January 27, 1915 – page 16

Click for more Sepia Saturday photos of horses, riders, and more.
Click for more Sepia Saturday photos of horses, riders, and more.