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.
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.
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