Category Archives: Great Migration

Fire-bombing – A Williams Family Memory

williamsfamily
James was taking the photo, unfortunately because Williams photos are rare. The two youngest girls were not yet born. Taken about 1959. Williams family photograph.

My husband James was a baby, the youngest of the five children of Chester and Theola Williams, when they moved from Dermott, AK to St. Louis, MO about 1945. At first they stayed with Theola’s sister who lived on  Keokuk Street.  James older brother Harold, born in January 1942, was kindergarten age, the family moved to a house they bought on Washington Blvd and Whittier Street.

Route from the house to the school.
Route from the house to the school.  From Google maps.
Screen shot 2016-07-17 at 12.01.14 PM
Cole Elementary School from Google maps. Click to enlarge.

Harold remembers that he started kindergarten about 1947 at Cole Elementary School, which was around the corner from the house.  He did not finish the year out because their house was fire bombed. They had moved into a white neighborhood where they were not wanted.  The oldest sister, Jocelyn Maxine remembered that their mother was very calm as she moved the children from the front of the house, where the bomb entered, to a back room.

Because of the bombing, the city of St. Louis gave the family an apartment in Carr Square Village, a public housing project.  When the family included nine children, they had outgrown that apartment and moved to Pruitt–Igoe, a large housing project first occupied in 1954. Eventually there were 12 children and the family bought a house on Cabanne Street. They lived there until about 1970 when they moved to Inglewood Court, where they lived until that property was taken by the city to build a strip mall about 2005.

My husband has been trying to find validation for this oral history, mainly searching old newspapers. So far he has not had any luck, but I think that he may have been searching the wrong years, so we are hopeful that eventually the story will be validated.

The Great Migration

Family_migration_routes_2

In the latest episode of Many Rivers To Cross, the Great Migration was briefly discussed. It got me to thinking about my family who pretty much all left the south in the early 1900s. I wrote an earlier series about the Graham side of my family and their move from Montgomery, Alabama to Detroit in 1917. You can read about that at these links:

To continue the story, I will start by writing about my Grandfather Albert B. Cleage and his siblings move from Athens, TN to Indianapolis, IN and finally to Detroit, Michigan, with mention of Uncle Edward Cleage and his family who remained in Athens.

Next I will cover my Grandmother Pearl Reed Cleage and the Reed family’s move from Lebanon, KY first to Indianapolis in the 1890s and on to Benton Harbor and Detroit, Michigan, with Uncle Hugh (Reed) Averette moving out to Los Angeles California.

Finally I will write about Eliza and Dock Allen’s children leaving Montgomery for Chicago, Detroit and New York.

I wanted to add my husband’s family, not sure if I will write them up soon though. They started in Dermott, AR. Catherine Williams went to Seattle, WA. Vennie Jean Williams went to Arkadelphia. Sterling Williams spent time in Little Rock before going to Chicago. Chester and Theola (my in-laws) moved to St. Louis, MO. Members of both the Davenports and the Williams migrated to Chicago.  Many relatives remained in rural AR, although none of my husband’s aunts or uncles.

As I write I will probably come up with stories within stories. This should provide me with writing material for weeks!

To see other posts I’ve written about this series , click this link My Responses to Many Rivers to CrossYou will also find links to other bloggers responding to this series by sharing their own personal family stories.

For those interested, I found the map I used at this site about the Great Migration.

Winter In St. Antoine

st_antoine_blog

by James Edward McCall

In St. Antoine the snow and sleet
Whiten and glaze the drab old street
And make the snow-clad houses gleam
Like crystal castles in a dream.
There, many swarthy people dwell;
To some, ’tis heaven, to others, hell!
To me the  street seems like a movie stage
Where Negros play and stars engage.
They laugh and love and dance and sing
While waiting the return of spring.
Some drown their heart-aches deep
In winter time on St. Antoine.

There, on the gutters frozen brink
A dope-fiend lies, with eyes that blink
And from a neighboring cabaret
come sounds of song and music gay.
At windows, tapping, here and there,
Sit dusky  maidens  young and fair,
With painted cheeks  and brazen eyes.
and silk clad legs crossed to the thigh
Upon the icy pavements wide,
Gay brown-faced children laugh and slide
While tawny men in shiny cars
Drive up and down the street like   czars.

Into a  church across the way
There goes a bridal party gay.
While down the street like a prairie-fire,
Dash a  bandit car and a cruising flyer.
Around the corner whirls a truck,
An old coal-peddler’s horse is struck;
The horse falls on the frozen ground,
The dark blood spouting from its wound.
A motley crowd runs to the scene;
A woman old, from shoulders lean,
Unwraps a quilt her hands have pieced
And spreads it o’er the shivering beast.

Among the swarthy folk who pass
Along the slippery street of glass,
Are some in furs and  some in rags;
Lovely women, wretched hags,
White-haired  migrants from the South;
Some wrapped in blankets, pipes in mouth;
Some smile while others seem to shiver,
As though they   long for Swanee River;
But though they dream with tear wet eyes
Of cotton-fields and sunny skies.
They  much prefer the heaven and hell
On St Antoine, where free men dwell.

******

James Edward McCall
James Edward McCall

James Edward McCall was my Grandmother Fannie Turner Graham’s first cousin. He was a poet and a publisher.  He lost his sight due to illness while a medical student at Howard University. He and his family migrated from Montgomery Alabama to Detroit Michigan about 1923.

You can read more about  James Edward McCall, Poet and Publisher 1880 – 1963 here.

Links to my previous posts in this series and to other African American Bloggers blogging about this series are at Many Rivers to Cross

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.

The Proposal

Fannie Mae Turner

Dear Fan,

I am feeling fine today and I hope that this will find you and all at home well.  I am off from my work today.  No, not sick just felt like taking a bit of rest and too it has been raining all day and it was such a fine day for sleep before taking my midday nap I had to talk a little to my sweetheart, I only wish I could here her voice and be made to feel happy.  Dear I don’t know anything of interest to write about just now.  Things are pretty quiet in Detroit, the factories are all getting ready for a big after war business and I think this city will get her share of it.  I am sorry that your mother has been sick, I hope she is O.K. and her self again.  

     Miss Snow formerly of Montgomery now Mrs. Kelly of Detroit lost her husband last week, I think she will bring the body home for burial. They have him now in storage until she is ready to leave for home with him.  Now dear  I wrote you sometime ago and told you that I had something to tell you when I saw you, but I just can’t keep it any longer, what I want to tell you dear is this, I feel as if I have tried a single life long enough and now I am going to ask you to become my wife.  Now dear, if you will commit to the above request let me know right away and I will write and ask the permission of your mother to marry you, and with her consent we will then fix the time of the wedding.  Now I hope you won’t let this shock you any, and please answer me as soon as possible, if we should get married I shall want you to come to this city to live after the wedding, so dear while you are considering the questions of marriage you may also consider the question of residing in Detroit, also.  

Mershell C. Graham

    Now dear please don’t keep me waiting too long for an answer to this letter, as I am over anxious to hear what your answer will be.  Remember me kindly to your mother and sisters, with lots of love and many thousand kisses I close, looking to receive an early and favorable reply

    I am as ever the same,

    Shell

To read Fannie’s acceptance letter click here

Lowndes Adams Found in 1965

Today while looking for old Easter pictures, I found a partial answer to the question I asked at the end of my blog post on the migration from Montgomery to points north – Did Lowndes Adams and my grandfather ever see each other again, or keep in touch?  I found a photo from 1965 of Lowndes and four of his sisters.  I don’t know where it was taken, not at my grandparents house for sure, but it shows they did keep in touch. From L to R we have: Jessie, Maude, Jane, Alice and Lowndes.

Here is a list of household members in the 1900 census.
James M Adams         53
Ida Adams                  41
Sarah Adams              18
Emaline Adams          16
Maud Adams              13
Ida Jessie Adams        12
Lowndes W Adams      9
James Russel Adams    6
Alice Adams                 3

Although Jane doesn’t appear in this census, she does appear in the 1910 census as an 8 year old.

More about the migration here:
The Migration From Montgomery to Detroit
Migration Story Part 2
Migration Story Part 3
The Migration Continues Part 4

Now back to looking for those Easter pictures.

Those Left Behind

After reading the letters my grandfather’s friends wrote to him in Detroit from Montgomery, I wondered what happened to those he left behind.  Did they stay?   Did they leave?  I know that my grandparents never returned to Montgomery once they married  so I wondered if he ever saw any of them again.  I didn’t find them in the photographs in the backyard of the house on Theodore but, if they had moved to Detroit there wouldn’t have been any backyard photos.  Those were reserved for out of town guests.

Lowndes, Rufus and Lewis with Lowndes niece,Edoline Speigner.

The six young men mentioned were Lowndes Adams, Robert Blakley, Rufus Taylor, Lewis Gilmer, Edgar Speigner and Nathan.  I was able to follow them with varying degrees of success.  There were twists and turns and connections and dead ends.  And always more information to look for and check.  Today I decided to write up what I have found  so far.

Lowndes William Adams was born February 11, 1893, in Montgomery, Alabama to James and Ida Adams.  James was a grocer.  Lowndes was the 5th of 7 children.  They all were educated and several of his sisters were teachers.   Lowndes worked as a stenographer and later was the branch manager of an insurance company.  He never married and shared his home with his widowed mother, several sisters, nieces and nephews.  He was in Montgomery in 1930.  He died in Detroit in 1977.  My grandfather died in 1973.  I wonder if they had a chance to spend time together.

Lowndes older sister, Emma Lena, married Edgar Speigner before he registered for the WW 1 draft in 1917.  Edgar was born September 17, 1882, in Montgomery. He and his brother Charles were raised by their mother, Carrie Taylor who was a cook.  Tall and stout,  he worked as a pullman porter all of his adult life.  Edgar and his wife Emma, raised four children.  He died in 1954 in Montgomery, Alabama.

Rufus Taylor was born January 19, 1886 in Montgomery.  His parents were Jordan and Fannie Taylor.  Rufus was a cousin of Victor Tulane.    Victor was married to Eliza and Dock’s daughter, Willie Lee.  Rufus lived with the Tulane family for many years and worked in the store first as a clerk and then as a salesman.  He remained in Montgomery and married Nan Nesbitt Jones.  As far as I know he had no children but helped raise Nan’s son, Albert, from her first marriage. Nan Nesbitt was the niece by marriage of another of Dock and Eliza’s daughter, the youngest, Beulah. That is, Nan was the stepdaughter of Beulah’s husband’s sister.  (Are you confused yet?) Rufus died in Montgomery at the age of 51 in 1937.

Mystery woman, Rufus Taylor, his wife Nan.

After posting  Migration Story Part 3 last week my cousin, Ruth (who is not related to Nan) asked her cousin (who is related to Nan) if Nan was married to Rufus Taylor, who was Victor Tulane’s cousin and my grandparent’s friend.   The answer was, yes, Rufus was Nan’s third of four husbands.  After Rufus died, Nan married a Mr. Murphy and ended up in Ohio, where she died in 1988.

I believe Nathan was Nathan Nesbit, a cousin of Nan but have not been able to follow a trail, yet.

Lewis Abram Gilmer was born in Alabama on May 18, 1885.  I’m not sure if he was born in Montgomery but he was raised there by his parents Louis and Carnelia Gilmer, along with 7 siblings.  His father was a porter, a butler and a chauffeur.    Lewis worked as a bank messenger in Montgomery.  He and his wife, Annie, had four children.  The oldest was born in 1919 in Montgomery.  The second was born in1924 in Mississippi and the two youngest were born in 1925 and 1927 in Detroit, Michigan.  Lewis worked as a porter at a department store in Detroit.  He died there in July, 1969.  I tried to find a link between Lewis Gilmer and Ludie Gilmer, who was the son-in-law of Beulah Allen Pope.  No luck.  Both their wives were named Annie but not the same Annie.

John Wesley Blakley was born January 22, 1893 in Montgomery, Alabama.  He married Virgie Dorsette Beckwith,  who wanted to leave the south according to John’s letter to Mershell.  He was a barber in Atlanta before WW 1 and in Chicago, Illinois afterwards.  He and his wife do not seem to have had any children.  John was in Chicago in 1942.  I have not yet found a death record or census records for 1900, 1910 or 1920 so I do not know his parent’s names or if he had siblings.

You can find part 1 and part 2 by clicking on these links.

Letters from home – Montgomery to Detroit 1917

Lowndes Adams and Rufus Taylor

204 Oak Street
Montgomery, Ala
May 17, 1917

Dear “Shell”:

Really I had begun to say little mean things about you, for it did look like you were going to take as long to write as you did when you first landed in Detroit.  You may know what a pleasure it is at all times to receive a letter from a friend and pal.

Well, Cliff and Chisholm are there and how do they like Detroit.  Tell Chisholm I know he will conserve a week looking at the skyscrapers and be sure to hold him when he is taken out to the lake.  It was a great surprise to know that he left with Cliff, as no one seemed to have been aware of his leaving until several days back.  Of course there is no need of advertising your intentions, but he and Cliff both got away without my knowing.

We have been having some real cool weather for this time of the year, and it has caused everything to be unbalanced somewhat.

Yes, I thought strongly of leaving this place on account of the depressing standing of our business and since it has changed for the better, I think I’ll stick a little longer.  I thought that my leaving would have been compelling from that point of view.

Edgar is home now, the Pullman Company gave him a run out of here to Mobile so he has transferred here.  He told me that he saw you and so many others that he knew and all seem to be getting along fine.

Would you believe me if I say that John Blakey, Lewis Gilmer, Rufus Taylor and myself are the only boys here and we look “motherless.”

Say, I want you to write me if you should see anything that you think may interest me.  Have you payed any attention along the typewriter lines; and should you see anything in the papers concerning this particular line of work – send it to me.

Was in Pensacola on April 29 to see my sister.  Had a dandy time, and went out to the Navy yard and saw some of our latest methods of war-fare.  Tell Chisholm and Cliff to write me sometimes, and my regards to Charlie Anderson and wife in fact, all of my friends that you come across.  Now I am expecting to hear from you real soon.  With best wishes from us all,

Your chum,
Lowndes

Lowndes Adams, Rufus Taylor and Lewis Gilmer

Montgomery Ala Feb 27/1918

My Dear Pal;
Your letter of a few days ago was received, and I can assure you that a line from my old friend was highly appreciated.  I remember writing you some time ago and for some reason I did not hear from you until now, but failing to put my address on my letter naturally would leave you in doubt as to where to write me, all of which I am very sorry.  I was indeed glad to hear that you and the other boys were all enjoying the very best of health and that the government has used good judgment in classing all of you in class A-1 and I only want you to know that when ever you all get there, you can rest assured that you will have the opportunity of seeing me for I am now in the old city taking my examination, they passed me all OK.  So you can see it is very likely I shall soon be somewhere in a training camp, I do wish however that it was possible for me to train somewhere in the Northern camps instead of the southern camps.  I am sure you understand why.  I shall leave tonight for Atlanta where I shall wait until they are ready for me to report for duty.  I was out to see your Mother Monday afternoon.  Found her looking and feeling the very best of health and was very glad to see me and to know that I had heard form you.  Of course she is worried over the thought of you boys having to go to the army, but said that if there was no way to keep out of it, why she felt she would have to make some sacrifice which is indeed a fine spirit.  I also stopped by Gwen and her mother’s.  They were both looking fine.  She was sick when I was here Xmas so I didn’t get a chance to see her and of course you know I couldn’t leave the city without seeing the Fairest Lady of the land.  Glad to say that she is looking just fine said that she would like so much to see you.

Montgomery is as dry as a chip.  There is really nothing doing here, all of the boys of our push have gone away with the exception of four Adams, Taylor, Gilmer and Nathan.  Mack; I wish it was possible for me to say just at present whether or not I will be able to come west or not this spring or even in the summer but as things are arranged now it is hard for me to say.  But if I am not called in to service real soon, why I shall have more time to think it over.

I am doing nicely in Atlanta.  I have the 5th chair in a 12 chair shop, which, of course is the largest shop there.  So far as getting along OK why I really have no reason to complain, but there is a desire to have that privilege to breath for once in life one deep breath of pure free atmosphere as a man, as well as meeting again with old friends.

I wish to be remembered to Cliff and Chisholm and to you all.  I hope your every efforts will be crowned with success.

Trusting that I shall hear from you again real soon,
I am your friend,
J.W. Blakely,
#8 Central Ave.
Atlanta, GA