My friend, historian Paul Lee, put this short clip of an interview of my father, Rev. Albert B. Cleage Jr. by Chet Huntley on You Tube. It is from late 1967 or early 1968, not long after the 1967 Detroit riot.
For a post about my experience of the Detroit riot click HERE.
For an audio of my father’s sermon the Sunday after the riot click HERE.
Lewis Cleage is one of my ancestors that I do not have a photograph of. Above is a photograph of his wife, Celia Rice Sherman holding their granddaughter Barbara Cleage Martin.
This photograph includes their five children. In the front are Albert B. Cleage Sr. (my grandfather), Josephine (Josie) Cleage and Edward Cleage. Behind Albert is Henry and behind Edward is Jacob (Jake).
Below are several descriptions and stories of Lewis by grandchildren who never met him.
Lewis Cleage and Celia were married and had young children. One of them was grandfather Cleage. Lewis C. worked all day for 50 cents. Celia worked all week for 50 cents. He often spent his on good times before he got home. Many nights he spent in jail – drunk – playing the guitar and singing! One evening she waited for him where he worked so she could get him and the money home before he spent it. He had had a drink or two and was cussing and threatening her as they went down a country road toward home. She was hanging on to him and crying. A passing white man stopped them, cursed Lewis, told him to stop abusing his wife, etc. And if he heard in future about him abusing her, he would find him and kill him. They never saw him again, until…
About twenty years later Celia was on the train going to see her children – who were now grown with children of their own. A white man on the train spoke to her. Asked if she wasn’t the same woman he had seen on the country road, etc., etc., and asked how she was!
Thought you would enjoy this. Louis remembers everything – knows lots of good stories.
Story by Louis Cleage (grandson) as told to Doris Graham Cleage. 1-29-79
Grandfather Louis: Tall, big-boned man in stature, heavy voice, coarse hair.
As described by Juanita Cleage Martin (granddaughter) in her writing “Memories to Memoirs” 1990
Lewis Cleage was a large, dark skinned man. He spent a lot of time playing his guitar, drinking and landing in jail. They could hear him in the cabin over at the jail, singing and playing the guitar. He’d get drunk, they’d throw him in jail. He was born in Louden, Tennessee and was shot early on, leaving Celia a widow.
As described by Henry W. Cleage (grandson) to Kristin Cleage Williams 1990s
According to his death certificate, Lewis Cleage didn’t die until 1918 in Indianapolis, Indiana. He died of Lobar pneumonia. I think I need to figure out how to find court records and see if I can find him there.
By 1880 Louis was married to my great grandmother, Celia Rice Cleage, and 4 of his 5 children had been born. My grandfather, Albert, would not be born until 1882. Louis’ age was listed as 28 and he was farming in Loudon County, Tennessee.
By 1900 Louis and Celia were no longer together. Celia lived in Athens, Tennessee with her second husband, Roger W. Sherman. The children lived with her and were attending school. Louis was working as a furnace laborer in the iron and steel industry that had grown up in Birmingham, AL. He had not been unemployed during the past year.
According to The Encyclopedia of Alabama: “The companies kept labor costs low by employing black workers, who came from depressed agricultural areas and supplied cheap labor. And the coal used to fire the furnaces was largely mined by forced convict labor leased to the companies at very low rates by the state and county governments.”
In the 1910 Census Louis Cleage was in the Chattanooga, Tennessee area working as a railroad laborer. He was enumerated in a railroad camp. He was listed as 54 years old and had been in his second marriage for 11 years. He was a wage worker and has not been unemployed during the past year, including the day before this census was taken, April 29, 1910. At age 54, there were only two men in the camp older than he was – 56 year old Lee McConnel and 70 year old Fate Parker. Most of the men are in their 20s and 30s with a good number in their late teens.
I got the idea for this post on the Blog, Reflecting on Genealogy.
Last year on Labor Day, I posted a chart of 7 generations of my family’s work history on both of my blogs. (How did I miss that I’ve been blogging for over a YEAR??) Today I’m going to repost them with a few minor changes. I can only find Lewis and Judy Cleage in the 1870 US Census and their marriage record. I am not convinced that all the children listed living with them are their children if their ages are correct. But having no other information, I put them in. I do not know what work the children did in the future. I think I will look for them again. Annie Green Reed had two husbands and four more children but I left them off of this chart. They were all laborers or farmers or housewives. Both Buford Averitt and Robert Allen come to the family tree as white men who did not acknowledge their black offspring as far as we know. Oral history and records of birth, marriage and death account for their making it onto my chart. I’ve pinpointed Buford but there are several possibilities with Robert so he has no job here. My direct line is highlighted in yellow. You can see a similar chart for my maternal side HERE.
Yesterday I was working like mad to complete an entry for the “Carnival of Genealogy – Our Ancestors Places of Worship”, by the midnight deadline when I came across two interesting pieces of new information.
First, even though I thought I had done this before with no success, I asked my cousins to ask their mothers what church they had attended as children in Detroit. The answer came back – St. John’s Presbyterian Church. At first I thought there was some confusion because I knew that my father had been pastor of St. John’s Congregational Church in Springfield, Mass. and St. Mark’s Presbyterian Church in Detroit but St. Johns Presbyterian? I didn’t remember ever hearing of it before. So, I googled it and found that not only was there a St. John’s Presbyterian Church in Detroit but that my Cleage grandparents were among founders and that it was founded in 1919, the same year my Graham grandfather was participating in the founding of Plymouth Congregational Church, also in Detroit, also on the East side. I looked for more information on St. Johns. I searched for even one photograph of the old church. I came up with very little. I looked through the family photos for something that looked like it was taken at a church but also found nothing aside from a few where the family is on their way to church. I did find the information below.
Detroit and the Great Migration 1916-1929, by Elizabeth Anne Martin Religion and the Migrant
“We, the believers in Christ members, are very proud of our rich heritage. We rejoice always; give praise and thanksgiving to our Lord for His abundant blessings of the faithful shoulders we stand on. We accept our charge of ensuring an African-American Presbyterian witness for our Lord in the city of Detroit, Michigan and beyond to the glory of God! St. John’s Presbyterian Church was among the new congregations formed because of the migration. In the winter of 1917 Reverend J.W. Lee, “field secretary for church extension among colored people in the North,” came to Detroit hoping to establish a Presbyterian church. He was disturbed by the fact that many migrants of the Presbyterian faith had turned to other denominations because there were no Presbyterian churches in Detroit. In April 1919 Lee organized thirty-nine believers into a new congregation. He served as pastor until 1921, when he recruited a southern preacher front Alabama to take his place. By 1925 the Sunday services at St. John’s were so popular that some people arrived as much as three hours early in order to secure seats. Hundreds of persons had to be turned away at both Sunday and weekday services.” One clarification, there were Presbyterian churches in Detroit but they were white.
Something the churches my grandparents helped found have in common is that they were both urban renewed and torn down to make way for, in the case of Plymouth, a parking structure and I’m not sure what for St. Johns but neither of the historic church buildings are standing today, although both churches are still going strong in their new buildings.
Next I decided to google the church my grandfather, Albert Cleage attended when he was growing up in Athens Tennessee. I found that he was too young to have helped start First United Presbyterian Church, it was founded in 1890 and he was born in 1883. However, his step-father, my great grandmother Celia Rice Cleage Sherman’s second husband, Rodger Sherman, is listed as the architect of the church on Wikepidia. Amazed? Yes, I was. Mr. Sherman and Celia Cleage weren’t married until 1897, First United Presbyterian church had been standing for 5 years by then. The church is still standing and still looking good today.
From the Website “J. Lawrence Cook – An Autobiography”
“After a short time at Fisk, just how long I do not know, my father (note: J.L. Cook) entered Knoxville College in Knoxville, Tennessee. [5] He worked to pay his expenses, and was also aided by donations from individuals back in his home town of Athens. In 1888 he received his bachelor’s degree from Knoxville College and entered Allegheny Theological Seminary in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to prepare for the Presbyterian ministry. [6] On 9 April 1890 he was licensed as a minister by the Allegheny Presbytery, and with this credential returned to Athens to establish a United Presbyterian mission. Fresh out of seminary, he began holding services in an old dance hall. [7]”
Other posts about church founding in my family.
From Montgomery to Detroit, A Congregational Church – COG Our Ancestors Places of Worship
Witherspoon United Presbyterian Church 1909, Indianapolis Indiana
Here are three combined photographs using Google Images with photographs of my family superimposed on them. I am participating in World Photography Day on August 19, through the Family Curator website with these photos.
I remember being three years old. My parents and I ate dinner together while my younger sister, Pearl, played in her playpen, wearing her favorite fuzzy blue hat. The dinner table was in the living room/dining room of the parsonage of St. John’s Congregational Church in Springfield, Massachusetts where my father was the minister. I used to hide my food under my chicken wing bones because I was never very hungry. I thought nobody noticed.
When my sister was older, the four of us ate meals together. We moved to Detroit when I was 4 and lived in two other parsonages. The first was on Atkinson we had a small dining room and ate there for all meals. My father’s parents lived down the street and he was often there for dinner leaving my mother, my sister and me eating alone.
The dining room on Atkinson. My mother is standing. You can see the back of my father’s head. His brother Louis is on the left. His brother Hugh is on the right and you can just see his sister Anna’s curl and chin. I guess Henry took the photo because he isn’t in it. I wonder why they are all at our table and where Pearl and I are. I remember those little fat turquoise salt and pepper shakers and the glass sugar and creamer. About 1952.
The next house, which was on Chicago Blvd, was huge and shared with the church. We always ate in the kitchen. My father teased me about being so skinny and told me I needed to eat more before I went down the bathtub drain or stuck in the chair because my bottom was so thin. When I was 8 years old I had my tonsils removed. I told my mother my fork wasn’t heavy any more. I started eating. There was roast beef and sliced tomatoes, chicken pot pies and oatmeal. I only remember eating one meal in the dining room. It was the Thanksgiving dinner right before my parents separated and we moved. My mother started teaching at the same elementary school I attended.
My mother, my sister and I moved to an upper flat on Calvert. What was supposed to be the dining room, was made into the television room and we ate our meals in the breakfast room while watching the pigeons nesting near the roof next door. We named one of them Bridie Murphy. We ate family style with bowls of food on the table that we served ourselves from. There was no free for all. “Please.” and “Thank you.” and “You’re welcome.” were expected and used. My mother cooked but my sister and I set the table and took turns washing the dishes and clearing the rack and table, usually with much whispering about who’s turn it was to do what. We whispered because my mother said she didn’t want to hear any arguing about it. I took cooking in junior high school and learned to make pineapple muffins which I made often. I remember fried chicken, mashed potatoes, jello salad and green beans.
When I was in 7th grade we moved to our own house on Oregon St. The kitchen was too small to eat in and we ate in the dining room which was pretty crowded with a piano, the dining room table and chairs and my mother’s desk (See photo below). My sister and I soon added cooking one meal a week to our dinner chores. I don’t remember what I cooked, aside from biscuits. I remember Pearl cooked a lot of hot dogs and corn bread.
My mother remarried when I was in high school and we all ate dinner together unless Henry was working late. He and my uncle Hugh had a printing shop at that time and often worked through the night. I remember Henry saying how important it was for a family to sit down to dinner together because it might be the only time of the day they spent together. As we got older there were interesting dinner table conversations about politics, what happened that day and more politics. Dinner continued to be a meal shared by all who were home as long as I lived there.
Not dinner, but this is the dining room of the house on Oregon Street about 1962. From left, my mother with the braid, sister Pearl, aunt Gladys, Me, my father.
When I was raising my own 6 children we ate together, although my husband was often working and did not get to eat with us. We continued to have meal time discussions and to serve family style. Now that my children are grown with their own families and dinner tables, my husband and I eat still eat our meals together at the table. Television has never been a part of our mealtimes.
The prompt: Week 32: Dinner Time. On a typical childhood evening, who was around the dinner table? Was the meal served by one person, or was it a free-for-all? What is dinner time like in your family today?
The “Saturday Night Fun” assignment from Randy Seaver at Genea-Musings (along with some of the fine results) can be found here. It involved picking out a photograph to use in this challenge for August 16 by the Family Curator. For the original challenge you hold up an old photograph and match it up to the present day scene. This means you have to be in the area. Unfortunately, I live far from the sites of my past and that of my ancestors so I was am not able to do this exactly. I also was not able to just choose my photo and let it go at that. Here is what I did.
In 2004 I spent a day driving around Detroit taking photographs of places where I used to live and of other houses family members lived in. The angle of this house fit almost perfectly with the photograph taken in 1953 of my father with my little sister Pearl and me. We are in front of the parsonage on Atkinson. My father was the minister of St. Mark’s Presbyterian Church, two blocks up the street on the corner of 12th Street and Atkinson.
My sister and I shared the bedroom on the upper left. We used to look out of the side window into the attic of Carol and Deborah. They were our age and lived next door and got to stay up much later then we did. They had a wonderful playroom in the attic. I taught Pearl to read by the streetlight shinning into our bedroom. I don’t know why we waited until we were supposed to be in the bed to teach and learn reading.
On our other side lived Eleanor Gross with her family. Eleanor was a teenager and babysat with us during the rare times our parents went out. My paternal grandparents lived down the street and I have a 2004 photograph of that house which I think I will mix with one from the 1950’s. I was trying to think of someone still in Detroit that I could get to take a photo from the proper angle of St. Mark’s. I like this assignment!
Last week Megan and Jim Heyl were kind enough to do some cemetery sleuthing for me. In spite of the rude and unhelpful attitude of the office staff, they found the groundskeeper to be helpful. He located the sod covered headstones of my paternal grandparents. The Heyls dug them out and replaced them on top of the sod so that they are now showing. More on Detroit Memorial Park Cemetery in the future.
