Category Archives: Obituary

Gladys Cleage Evans Obituary

Cleages, Obituary

Click to enlarge.

Gladys was my father’s sister and my aunt. She contributed her spit for DNA testing, helping make new family discoveries.  I spent much time with Gladys when we both lived in Idlewild. We used to walk to Head Start together. I remember she told me some of her childhood  and adult memories and I wrote them down in one of my notebooks, and I haven’t been able to find them, but I am going to go through page by page soon.  She also shared memories of her extended family, which I quote in some posts. Gladys also shared with me the letters that her father wrote to her mother when they were courting, which I used to write an A-Z series several years ago Index to the Letters from Dr. Albert B. Cleage.  I wish I could have shared the letters that her mother wrote to Homer and the information about my grandmother Pearl’s uncle Thomas Allen who fought with the USCT in the Civil War. Hopefully, she knows.

Pearl Doris Reed Cleage Obituary

Cleages, Obituary, Reeds

PEARL D. CLEAGE, HELPED FOUND ST. JOHN’S CHURCH

DETROIT FREE PRESS

Date: Friday, July 23, 1982     Page: 7 B

Edition: Metro Final     Secton: OBT

Pearl D. Cleage, a founder of St. John’s Presbyterian Church in Detroit, died Saturday while vacationing in Idlewild, Mich. She was 94.

Mrs. Cleage, a Detroit resident since 1915, was the widow of the late Dr. Albert B. Cleage SR. and the mother of Reverend Albert B Cleage Jr., minister and founder of the Shrines of the Black Madonna, who began the Black Christian Nationalist movement in Detroit in the late 1960s. The Shrines are in Detroit, Atlanta and Houston.

Mrs. Cleage often lectured on African-American history. She was a member of the Auxiliaries of the Iota Boule and Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternities.

Survivors include four sons, the Rev. Albert B. Cleage Jr., Dr. Louis, Henry and Hugh; three daughters, Barbara Martin, Gladys Evans and Anna Shreve; nine grandchildren, and 10 great-grandchildren.

____________________

Other posts about my paternal grandmother, Pearl Doris Reed Cleage.

Introduction to the letters my grandfather Albert B. Cleage wrote to Pearl Reed before their marriage from 1907 to 1910.

Grandmother Pearl Reed Cleage’s Birthday
Pearl Reed Cleage With Baby Henry
Grandmother Pearl Reed Cleage – photographs
Two Newspaper Articles 1908 and 1960
Dr. Albert B. Cleage and Miss Pearl Reed Wed
1940 Census – The Albert B. and Pearl (Reed) Cleage Family
Pearl Doris Reed Cleage 1884 – 1982 – Two Photographs
Albert and Pearl Reed Cleage – Cemetery
Albert and Pearl (Reed) Cleage 1922
Grandmother Before the Party – 1971
Oh Dry Those Tears

Anna Cecelia Cleage Shreve 1925 – 2013

Obituary
Anna – Pharmacist at the Cleage Clinic

For years, my aunt Anna was the pharmacist at my uncle Louis Cleages clinic. When we went to the doctor’s, my sister, mother and I would stop in the back for a visit with her. Sometimes she would give us things that I guess were trinkets from the drug salesman. The only one I remember was a pile of what looked like pennies painted a gold color and glued to look like a heap.

Many year later, when I was grown and living in Idlewild with a family of my own, I would always stop by and visit my aunt and uncle, Anna and Winslow in Detroit. They both had great memories and a wealth of family stories. I would drink tea and eat cookies or something while they told me tales of the family’s past.

Anna had a distinctive laugh and my daughter Ife sometimes laughs in the same way. I do miss them still and wonder what stories we never got around to.

Other posts about Anna

Skating Champions
Anna, Gladys and the Dog
The Cleage Sisters at Home
Three Sisters

Fannie Mae Turner Graham Obituary – 1888 – 1974

Grahams, Obituary, Turner

Grandmother Clock
From top, clockwise: My grandmother Fannie in the 1950s. My grandmother Fannie was 4 holding her hat. Her mother Jennie holding Daisy. Her father, Howard Turner had been killed. 1894. My grandfather Mershell pointing at Fannie about 1917. My grandmother holding my mother Doris up, 1923. My grandmother in the back, her mother in the front holding baby Howard, on the left my mother Doris and on the right my aunt MV, 1930. My grandmother with her daughters MV and Doris, about 1934. My grandparents Mershell and Fannie (Turner) Graham, about 1945.