My mother Doris Sewing in August 1944. Unfortunately no photo of her knitting.
In 1943, my mother was 20 years old. Excited about her first niece or nephew being born that year, she took a knitting class in college where she made some little outfits. Unfortunately, I don’t have a photo of my mother knitting, so I am sharing one of her sewing.
The Detroit Tribune Detroit, Michigan • Sat, Jun 19, 1943 Page 5
Have You Heard?
That Doris Graham is so thrilled over the prospects of becoming an aunt in the summer, that she, and not the prospective mama (Merry Vee Graham Elkins) is doing the knitting? Doris took a special course in knitting at Wayne last semester and is incorporating her learnings in an array of the dantiest, laciest tiny garments one could wish for.
May 1943 Detroit. Mershell Graham, Bud Elkins, Fannie Graham, Mary Vee Graham Elkins
“Dad – Bud – Mother – ? M Vee” “May 1943”
1943 Carrying D Dee
May 1943. “DD” on the way born 9/7/1943. Same date as Howard – his 9/7/28
Fannie Turner Graham, my grandmother, wrote this on the back of the photograph. Howard was her youngest child. He was born on the same day but 15 years earlier, as her first grandchild, Dee Dee. Howard died when he was only three. You can read about him here -> N – NINETEEN TWENTY EIGHT Howard Graham was born
From Doris Diane 1943 Xmas
I think Dee Dee is wearing a little knitted top here. Maybe from her Aunt Doris.
Click to enlarge photos from that day. Photos by my uncle Henry Cleage.My grandfather cutting the turkey. Seventeen year old me on the left. My mother on the right.
It was Thanksgiving at my Graham Grandparents house in 1963, East side Detroit. My grandfather cuts the turkey. My mother sits on the right. I am on the left, my sister next to me. I wonder where my Aunt Mary Vee and my cousins were? Usually there were four more around the table. How we all fit I do not know, but we did. The house is gone now. Everybody in this photo except my sister and I are dead. We are older than my grandparents were.
Four generations gathered around dining room table in 1963 for Thanksgiving dinner. There was turkey with cornbread dressing cooked by my grandfather. There was white rice, cranberry jelly, green beans, corn pudding and sweet potatoes. There was my grandmother’s finely chopped green salad and her homemade biscuits with butter and with a relish plate holding olives, sweet pickles and carrot sticks.
One thing there wasn’t, was talk about the old days. My grandparents were born in 1888. My grandmother was born Fannie Turner in Lowndes County, Alabama. My grandfather was born Mershell Graham in Elmore County, Alabama. They met and married in Montgomery. My great great Aunt Abbie was born in 1877 in Montgomery, Alabama and was the second to youngest child of Dock and Eliza Allen.
Unfortunately, I can’t go back to 1963 and sit around the table and steer the conversation around to who was where and when and how and why. Did they celebrate Thanksgiving growing up? What did they have for dinner? Who was there? I’d ask Poppy, where he was in 1900? Where were his parents? and what happened to his older brothers? I wish I could hear them tell their stories tomorrow.
For this year’s A to Z Challenge, I will be posting an event for that date involving someone in my family tree. Of course it will also involve the letter of the day. It may be a birth, a death, a christening, a journal entry, a letter or a newspaper article. If the entry is a news item, it will be transcribed immediately below. Click on photographs to enlarge in another window.
The Detroit Tribune Detroit, Michigan • Sat, Apr 22, 1939 Page 1
At Third Annual Youth Conference
A group of delegates who attended the third annual Conference at Plymouth Congregational church last week. Seated left to right are: Roger Canfield, Mary Virginia Graham (note: my mother’s sister), Alice Stanton, Ida Pettiford, and Mary Goodson. Standing left to right. Frank Elkins, Clarence Woods, and the Rev. Horace White, pastor of Plymouth.
The Michigan Chronicle Detroit, Michigan • Sat, Mar 18, 1939 Page 6
Local Youth Plan Spring Conference
Rev. Horace White On Planning Board
Plans are well under way for a Youth conference which is scheduled to be held early in April. The planning committee, consisting of: Theodore Crosby, Clarence Bradfield, Herbert Simms, Todd Cleage (note; my father. His nickname was Toddy), Oscar Hand, Porter Dillard, Pearl Walker, Gloster Current, Clarence Bradley, Flossie Williams, Edward Swan, Ida M. Pettiford, Louise Blackman, Florine Cage, Lawrence Green, chairman and others, met last Monday evening to discuss further already tentative plans. The theme of the meeting will be “The World We Live In.” Todd Cleage was appointed to submit plans for the conduct of sessions dealing with change in government.
Edward Swan was appointed chairman of projects. Louise Blackman is chairman of sessions dealing with personal and social philosophies; Porter Dillard, chairman of the student sessions, and Pearl Walker, chairman of publicity.
Sharecropper Here
Rev. Horace White announced at the last meeting that there was a possibility of securing as main speaker for meet the outstanding hero of the recent sharecropper dilemma occurring recently in southeastern Missouri, the Reverend Owen Whitfield.
It is expected that Langston Hughes will also appear as a main attraction. The next committee meeting will be held Monday evening at Plymouth Congregational Church at 9 p.m. All youth groups interested in participating are requested to contact Lawrence Green at Plymouth church..
‘Best Poetry, Not Books, But In Lives Of Men And Women’
“For want of a poet, the people perished,” is an old allegation. but last Sunday evening the people, many of them. lived and were inspired to dare new deeds and new dreams when Langston Hughes, dusky poet, traveler, playwright, lecturer and novelist, in convincingly courageous vein painted graphically, word pictures of the elements which contribute to the making of a virile, progressive race.
Poems of the People
Most of the numbers read by Mr. Hughes were as is characteristic of most of his poetry, poems of the people, their struggles and hardships. His appreciation for the realism therein expressed was emphasized, when In comment he said. “The best poetry is not written in books, but comes from the lives of men and women in the streets.” Representative of this belief were the poems “Elevator Boy” and “Porter.”
Mass Awareness Urged
Urging a comprehensive appreciation of the political structure within which we live, Hughes urged an awareness on the part of the masses of political trends indicating that out of Fascism come such enemies of Justice as unemployment, Jim crowism and economic oppression of millions. Specifically referred to were the recent Scottsboro case and the plight of millions of sharecroppers and tenant farmers throughout the south.
In the poems “Flight” and “Lynching Song” the poet revealed the dogged courage and determination of the Negro in the face of adversity and averred that “Poverty and lynching can kill a strong race.”
“Faith in life, self and the earth, helps a race, as it does an individual to live and to grow,” the poet contended. “It. has been said that no man lives alone and Negroes, to save and bring out the best in life for himself, must unite with other groups and classes whose problems are similar and whose solutions to problems lie in the same channel as the the Negro’s,” Hughes continued.
“The black man through correct evaluation of and reaction to his peculiar situation can teach other races what true Americanism is. The possibilities for resurrection from the dismal. abyss of inertia, the chilly tomb of oppression.’ according to the poet,. “are within the race.”
Closes Season
The presentation of Mr. Hughes marked the end of the successful mid-winter lecture season conducted by the lecture committee of Plymouth Congregational church of which Rev. Horace A. White is pastor. Mrs. Whitby is chairman of the committee..
Oh Freedom After While
________________
Out Yonder on the Road – long article about the sharecroppers demonstration in 1939. Includes photos, causes, methods and end result.
This is an extra post and not a part of the A to Z Challenge. I wanted to share this post for two reasons, there is a photograph of Dee Dee’s Godfather, Jack Franklin sitting in front on the left. And even more so because finally I found a news item describing a gathering at someone’s house and they told us what food was served! I found the recipe below in The Household Searchlight Recipe Book from 1931.
The Social Sixteen – 1937. Howard Tandy, Phyllis Lawson, Shirley Turner, John Roxbourough, Doris Graham, Bob Johnson, Christine Smoot, Bud Elkins, Gladys House, Bobby Douglas, Walter House, Lewis Graham, Connie Stowers, Burney Watkins, Jean Johnson, Barbara Cleage, Jack Franklin, Mary V. Graham.The Detroit Tribune, Detroit, Michigan • Sat, Dec 4, 1937 Page 5
SOCIAL SIXTEEN CLUB The Social Sixteen Club met at the home of Miss Barbara Cleage on Scotten avenue. All members were present and the meeting progressed with the president, Miss Doris Graham presiding. The minutes of the last meeting were read by the secretary, Miss Shirley Turner. Old business was called for and discussed. The new business dealt with the party that the club is planning to give in the near future. Jack Franklin, who is an amateur photographer and is one of the club’s members, took flood-light pictures of the members present. Refreshments, which consisted of tuna fish and cheese sandwiches and orange-gingerale drink, was served by the hostess. This repast was enjoyed by all present.
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I found this Sandwiches of History site where he actually makes this sandwich. I had to add it.
For this year’s A to Z Challenge, I will be posting an event for that date involving someone in my family tree. Of course it will also involve the letter of the day. It may be a birth, a death, a christening, a journal entry, a letter or a newspaper article. If the entry is a news item, it will be transcribed immediately below. Click on photographs to enlarge in another window.
*You don’t have to sign in to comment. You can do so anonymously and add your name in the comment. Or you can fill out the name section only.
Doris Diane Elkins in bonnet front left, cousin Mary Jane Roberts, right front. Their mothers, Mary Vee Graham Elkins and Elizabeth Elkins Roberts are behind them.The Detroit Tribune, Detroit, Michigan • Sat, April 22, 1944 Page 4
Sunday, four generations were represented at the christening of Doris Diane Elkins, the small daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Frank Elkins, of McDougall. The ceremony took place at the home of the baby’s maternal great grand mother, Mrs. Jennie Turner, of Harding avenue. Her paternal grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. M. C. Graham, aIso her paternal grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. Frank Elkins, Sr.; her aunts. -Misses Daisy and Alice Turner, and Mrs. Elizabeth Roberts, all were present to witness the event. The baby’s godparents. Mr. and Mrs. Jack Franklin, of Oakland, Calif., sent their godchild a beautiful bonnet for the christening.
Paternal Aunt and paternal grandparents
Doris Diane with parents, Frank and Mary Vee ElkinsMaternal grandparents, Mershell and Fannie Graham.
Doris Diane Elkins is my first cousin. Our mothers, Mary V. and Doris Graham, were sisters. My sister wondered why our mother wasn’t there. The reason was because she was married and living in San Francisco where my father was co-pastor at Fellowship Church, non-denominational.
Eleven years ago in 2014, I published this photograph of my grandmother on the steps of her church with some friends. I decided to look on newspaper.com and see if anything was going on at Church that Sunday. There was! It was the 17th Anniversary of Plymouth Congregational Church.
Granmother Fannie Turner Graham on far right with friends.
Written on the back of the photograph by my grandmother Fannie:
“Mrs. C. L. Thompson, Miss Watt, Mrs. Martha Lee (Died July 1937), F. Graham. Taken as we talked on our Church steps 5/17/36 by Jim Dunbar”
______________
The Detroit Tribune Sat, May 16, 1936 · Page 3
PLYMOUTH CHURCH TO CELEBRATE 17TH ANNIVERSARY
REV. WHITE TO DELIVER SERMON
Plymouth Congregational Church, at Garfield and Beaubien, will celebrate its seventeenth anniversary,! Sunday, May 17 and during; the week following.
The minister, Rev. Horace White, will deliver the anniversary sermon, Sunday, May 17. Special music will be rendered by the choir.
Other features of the week’s program will include an address on “The Social Message of the Church,” by Rev. A. C. Williams, pastor of Metropolitan Baptist Church, Tuesday, May 19. His Senior Choir will provide the music. Wednesday, May 20, at 7 p. m. the church’s annual birthday dinner will be held, and after the dinner, Dr. Harold M. Kingsley, of Chicago, will speak. Friday, May 22, will be observed as “Frolic Night.’’ The young people of the church will furnish the program. All members and friends of the church are invited to join Plymouth in celebrating the seventeenth anniversary of its work in Detroit.
Another photo from the same day. My Aunt Mary Virginia is circled in the back row. She was 16.
In 1936 the Grahams lived on THEODORE Street on the east side of Detroit. My grandfather Mershell worked at Ford’sRouge plant in the Electrical Stacks. He was 49 years old. He was one of the founders of Plymouth Church.
My grandmother Fannie was 47 years old. She didn’t work outside of the home. They kept chickens, had a large garden and several fruit trees. My grandfather rode the streetcar to work and they drove “Lizzie” to church. They had bought their first car, “Lizzie” two years earlier and kept it until the late 1950s.
My aunt Mary Virginia was 16 and my mother Doris was 13. Both were students at Eastern High School on East Grand Blvd and within walking distance of their house.
Mary Virginia, Fannie and Doris Graham. 1936. Lizzie in background
This photograph was taken the previous Sunday , Mother’s Day.
For this year’s A to Z Challenge, I will be posting an event for that date involving someone in my family tree. Of course it will also involve the letter of the day. It may be a birth, a death, a christening, a journal entry, a letter or a newspaper article. If the entry is a news item, it will be transcribed immediately below. Click on photographs to enlarge in another window.
Cuddly Mary Virginia Graham April 1920. Mignon, daughter of the couple that owned the house on the left with the bow.The Emancipator, Montgomery, Alabama • Sat, April 10, 1920 Page 2
BIRTH ANNOUNCEMENT.
The hearts of Mr. and Mrs. Merchell Graham were gladened Saturday, April 3rd, by the arrival of a sweet baby girl. Mr. and Mrs. Graham now reside in Detroit, Mich., but both are former Montgomerians.
Mary Virginia Graham
_______________
Mershell and Fannie (Turner) Graham. August 1919. Detroit, Michigan.
Mr. and Mrs. Mershell Graham were my maternal grandparents. Mary Virginia Graham, born April 3, 1920 was my mother’s older sister and my aunt.
My grandfather, Mershell Graham came to Detroit from Montgomery, Alabama in 1917. He proposed to my grandmother, Fannie Turner in 1918. She accepted and they were married on June 15, 1919 at Fannie’s home in Montgomery and left the same day for Detroit.
They roomed with friends from home and lived there when Mary Virginia was born. Mershell worked in an Auto plant as an inspector. My grandmother did not work outside of the home after her marriage.
My maternal grandfather, Mershell Cunningham Graham was born about 1887 in Coosada Station, Elmore County, Alabama. He was the fourth of six children. His parents farmed. His maternal grandmother lived in Elmore county, but she doesn’t appear in any records after the 1880 census so she was possibly dead before he was born. His maternal grandfather was the slave holder and he died in 1860, well before Mershell was born. Mershell’s father, William Graham, doesn’t appear with his parents, so I don’t know who they were, much less if they lived nearby and were alive when my grandfather Mershell was.
Albert B. Cleage Sr.
My paternal grandfather, Albert B. Cleage, was born in 1884, the youngest of five children. His father, Louis Cleage was share cropping in Loudin, Tennessee. After Louis Cleage and his wife Celia Rice Cleage, divorced, she moved back to Athens where her mother Susan Rice Regan lived. Susan lived until 1911 when my grandfather would have been grown. I am sure that he knew her.Susan and al of her children had been enslaved on a Rice plantation south of Athens. Celia’s father was an unknown slave holder by name of Rice and I’m sure that my grandfather never met him. Albert B. Cleage’s paternal grandparents were Frank and Juda Cleage. They were enslaved on Alexander Cleage’s plantation in Athens, Tennessee. They do not appear in any records after the 1870 census. According to the testimony of Adeline Sherman in the pension case of Katie Cleage, Frank and Juda died before 1890, when she gave testimony. I doubt that they they lived long enough for my grandfather to meet them.
Pearl Doris Reed 1904
My paternal grandmother, Pearl Doris Reed, the youngest of eight children, was born about 1886 in Lebanon, Kentucky. Her mother Annie Allen Reed and her maternal grandmother, Clara Hoskins Green, lived near each other. Clara died after 1880. Annie’s father is listed as Robert Allen. I cannot find a Robert Allen in their area. Pearl probably would have met Clara if she lived until the 1890s. Annie and her children moved to Indianapolis, Indiana about 1891 when Annie and her oldest son George appear in the city directory. Pearl was about five years old. Her father Buford Avritt was a white doctor who, according to oral history, did not support the family in their time of need. I was warned never to mention his name to my grandmother. I’m sure she never met her paternal grandparents.
You can read about my maternal grandmother and her grandparents at this ink -> when it goes up
Albert B. Cleage was born in Tennessee in 1884. He moved to Indianapolis, IN in 1909 to attend Medical School. There he met and married Pearl Reed, who was born in Kentucky and came to Indianapolis as a small child. Soon after the birth of my father in 1911, the family moved to Kalamazoo, Michigan where my grandfather became the first black physician. After several years, they moved to Detroit.
The Cleages and friends at Idlewild, Michigan 1925. Three of the children are not in the photo – Louis, Hugh and baby Anna. Cannot identify the others.
In 1920 they bought a large brick house on the corner of Scotten and Moore Place on Detroit’s Old Westside. By 1925 they were the parents of seven children, my father Albert (14), Louis (12), Henry (9), Hugh (7), Barbara (5) Gladys (3), and baby Anna born in January of that year.
Family home 1920-1948. 6429 Scotten Avenue. Detroit, Michigan.
My grandfather’s medical office was several blocks away at 4334 McGraw. He and Dr. Grimes, a dentist, shared the space. My grandmother had plenty to do at home with seven children and didn’t work outside the home after she married.
Dr. Cleage shared an office with in the house above in 1925.
Dr. Grimes and Dr. Cleage on the office steps
Pearl and AnnaHugh, Barbara, Gladys and Albert Cleage. 1925LouisHughAlbert and AnnaHenry, Albert Jr, Albert Sr, Gladys
Eighth grade class at Wingert Elementary School. My father is second from left, front row. 1924
My father, Albert Jr with his eighth grade class at Wingert Elementary school. The school was a block from their house. Henry, Hugh, Louis and Barbara were also students at Wingert in 1925.
Two of Albert’s siblings, Jacob and Henry, and their families plus his mother Celia were also living in Detroit by 1925. They lived within walking distance of each other. My great grandmother Celia lived with my grandfather. His sister Josephine still lived in Indianapolis. His brother Ed remained in Athens, Tennessee and died there the following year.
They were members of St. John’s Presbyterian church, where Albert and Pearl had been founding members. They had a car which Albert used for work. They took trips both in Michigan and to Indianapolis and Athens to visit family.
Last week I realized it was 102 years since my mother Doris Graham Cleage was born on February 12, 1923 in Detroit, Michigan. When I read the Saturday Night Genealogy Fun theme was your family 100 years ago. I decided to do it. Click on the links for more information. Click on the photographs to enlarge them.
The Grahams, maybe Belle Isle park, Detroit, 1925 Left is my grandfather Mershell C, Graham holding my mother Doris. My grandmother Fannie Turner Graham is holding my uncle Mershell C. Graham Jr and my aunt Mary V.
My grandfather came to Detroit from Montgomery, Alabama in 1917. In 1919 he went back and married my grandmother and they returned to Detroit. By 1925 they had been there six years. They had three children, all born in Detroit, Mary V. (5), Mershell Jr (4) my mother Doris (2).
6638 Theodore Street, Detroit, Michigan
Mershell and Fannie bought a frame house at 6638 Theodore on the east side of Detroit when my mother was on the way. Fannie’s mother and her two sister’s came up from Montgomery and moved in with them. In 1925 all three worked at Annis Furs.
Staff at Annis Furs. My great grandmother Jennie Turner is on the far right, middle row. Next to her is her daughter Alice. Aunt Daisy is right in the center of that middle row, #4.
My grandfather worked at the Highland Park Ford Plant as an inspector. My grandmother didn’t work outside of the home after her marriage. My aunt Mary V. at five, would have been attending half day kindergarten at Thomas Elementary school, several blocks from their house.
They were active members of Plymouth Congregational Church where my grandfather Mershell had been a founding member. They didn’t have a car. They walked or traveled by streetcar.
