Category Archives: Photographs

Family Faces – Memorial Weekend 2013

Cleages, Photographs

In September of  2012 members of the family met in Detroit to celebrate my Aunt Gladys (my father’s sister) 90th birthday. On Memorial Weekend we again gathered, this time to celebrate my Ernest’s and Susan’s 25th wedding anniversary. Some of the same people were at both, some were at one and not at the other. It was wonderful to see cousins and cousins spouses, once again at a celebratory event.  The younger cousins are getting to know each other. The aunts are getting a chance to see each other and older cousins are getting a chance to see each other outside of facebook! I hope we can continue to meet often to celebrate family. Often enough that the children will not just know they’re family, but feel it.

Cleage family members who gathered at Ernest and Susan's in May of 2013.
Cleage family members who gathered at Ernest and Susan’s in May of 2013 – cousins, aunts, children, grandchildren, spouses.

I hope I didn’t leave anybody off. If I did, please advise and I will add them.  The header photo is from the September gathering, put them together and you have almost  the whole Albert and Pearl Cleage branch of the family. One day maybe we can get those missing family members there too!

Alice Reads A Thrilling Comic – #Sepia Saturday 174

Cleages, Photographs, sepia saturday

This photo comes from my Cleage stash and features Alice, my Uncle Henry’s first wife, reading a Thrilling Comic.  How did she happened to be reading it? Did she enjoy comics? Love thrillers? Was she posing (or posed) for the photo? Was the comic book laying around because that is where Henry got his short story ideas?  Judging by her eyes, she does look mildly thrilled.

Alice_Stanton_reads

Thrilling Comics

“Thrilling Comics was one of the longest runs the publisher had. It ran for eighty issues. The issues themselves featured many different kinds of comic stories like the standard superhero story as well as westerns, detective, stories, comedies, comic strips, short stories and many more.”  The series started in 1940 and ran through 1951. To see all the covers for the 80 issues, click Thrilling Comics.

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The Afram River and Freedom School – 1964

Photographs, sepia saturday
afram_river
Black star line of Ghana in Rotterdam 22nd March 1980.    Afram River <- click to see original photo.

freedom_school_flyer

The articles below originally appeared in the official organ of the Group on Advanced Leadership (GOAL), Now! News of Detroit and the World.  It was published by Imari Obadeli, known as Richard Henry, at the time. It was printed at Cleage Printers, my uncle Hugh’s and Henry’s printing shop.  The first article was written by my aunt Barbara Cleage Martin, who was Barbara Smith in 1964.

The only think I really remember about the Freedom School, which I attended between high school graduation and entering college, is the visit to the ship, the Afram River and the gift certificate to Vaughn’s Bookstore that my sister and I received for being #1 students. I don’t know what we did that made us outstanding.

freedom_school_1

freedom_school_2afreedom_school_3Unfortunately, I don’t have the rest of the article, but I know that Marcus Garvey organized the first Black Star Line. You can read more about it here – The Black Star Line.

Freedom School posed photograph 1964.
Freedom School posed photograph 1964.

I don’t have a photograph of myself with the Afram River. What were they thinking? We should have all been lined up next to the ship and photographed.  It would have been a great photograph. This is the only photograph I have of myself that summer. I am seated on the left, front. Next to me is my cousin Dale Evans. The other seated person on the right is the twin of the young man standing next to my father on the right. Their sister is behind the seated twin. I can’t remember their names or the name of the other youth on that side. On the other side of my father (reading the book and then known as Rev. Albert B. Cleage, JR) is my cousin, Ernie. Next to him is my sister Pearl. I can’t remember the name of the person behind me on the end but I know she became an actor for at least awhile.

Freedom_award-64

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Beating Rugs

Mystery, Photographs, sepia saturday

This is the 22nd post in the February Photo Collage Festival and a Sepia Saturday offering.  Today I am sharing a mystery photograph from my Graham collection. This week’s prompt is “unknown people”.

I don’t know who they are. I assume they are friends of my grandparents from Montgomery, Alabama who spent the day beating carpets and then posed for this photo.  The older woman doesn’t look very happy about any of it.  I would date them in the early 1900s.

We were beating carpets and don't we look like it.
“We were beating carpets in the backyard and don’t we look like it.”

verso_strangers
Verso of the photo above.

This seems to be the same family on a different day.
This seems to be the same family on a different day.

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Girl On A Bike -Sepia Saturday #162

Photographs, sepia saturday

This is my second photo for the February Photo Collage Festival and the Family History Writing Challenge, click on the link to see the full collage. I didn’t put the actual picture in the collage because it is a Sepia Saturday entry. The prompt is in the bottom row towards the center. It shows some young telegraph boys with their bikes in front of part of a sign saying “Telegraph”. You can click the collage to enlarge it.

girl_on_bike

Here we have a rather blurry photograph of two mystery girls and a bike. It was in my box of Cleage photographs but I don’t recognize them as relatives. Sometimes the Cleage photographers took street photos of random people so perhaps this is one of those.  Looks like they are on a big street passing a  store of some kind.  Looking in the window I seem to see a fan over the shoulder of the walking girl.  The partial sign seems to be for a hardware store advertising “scales, ladders, shot guns and crock(ery)”.

From looking at the clothes and shoes the girls are wearing and the lettering on the signs, I think it was taken in the mid to late 1940s. I am open to more informed opinions on that. Just a minute while I locate the original photograph so I can describe it. The paper this is printed on is thick. There are some matte photos printed on thick paper. This one is glossy, there seems to be a glossy layer added. It measures 5″w x 3.5″h. Of course there is no identification on the back.

While looking for the photo to describe it I came across several photos that will be excellent for future SepiaSaturday posts. I even found a nice birds eye view shot of two girls riding a bike but I will have to save that for the inevitable next bicycle prompt.

For a more personal look at bikes and biking read my old Sepia Saturday post Biking at Old Plank Road, 1962.

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February Photo Collage Festival – 28 photos, 28 posts.

February Photo collage Festival, Photographs

This February  Julie@Anglers Rest is hosting a February Festival of Collages.  It all started after Pauleen of Family history across the sea posted a collage and we started commenting. Before we knew it, this challenge was born. Participants will post a collage of 28 photographs on January 30 or 31 and for each day of February we will blog about one of the photos.  There are no other rules. It doesn’t have to be about genealogy. To participate you just post a link to your collage on Julie’s page at the link above.

I decided to combine several themes in my collage. I have several photos of places I lived that weren’t covered in the A-Z challenge last year. I have some Sepia Saturday themes that I will cover on the appropriate Saturdays.  I have been working on investigations for two separate family lines. I will write up one of them during this challenge. One is “What happened to Hugh Reed and his family?” I will be writing about each of the members of this family.  I will be writing about what happened to the cousins who appeared in this photo in answer to the question “What did they do when they grew up?”.  I’ve filled in the remaining spaces with relatives or events I haven’t written up but want to.  The first post will appear on Friday, February 1.  I will be going through the pictures in no particular order.

 

A Trip to the Cleaners

Cleages, Photographs, sepia saturday

cleage_album_cleaners

I found this photo of an unidentified cleaners in my Cleage photographs. There are no Cleages in the photo. It’s pasted on a piece of cardboard and a child, has scribbled in pencil all over the picture. I assume unidentified Cleaners is located in the neighborhood of the Old Westside of Detroit.

I have not been able to identify either the cleaners or the owners. There is a “Detmer Woolens” calendar on the wall but I can’t make out the year even when I scan it at 600 dpi.  The dress the woman behind the counter is wearing, the narrow pant legs of the menby the counter and in  poster on the wall and the short hair on the calendar girl make me think the photo was taken in the mid-1930s.  I found this history of Detmer Woolens interesting.

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and here is the link