Category Archives: Photographs

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

Warren’s Christmas Birthday Party, 1958

Christmas, Cleages, Photographs, sepia saturday, , ,
cleage_cousins
Front row: Jan and Dale Evans  Middle: Pearl Cleage, Warren Evans, Ernest Martin  Back: Me (Kristin Cleage) If only Ernie had stepped a bit to the right you would be able to see both of our faces.  Why is Dale making that face? Must be because he’s 8.

My cousin Warren always had a party on his December 30th birthday. All of the Cleage cousins gathered at his house where his mother, my aunt Gladys, made a punch of Vernor’s ginger ale with orange sherbert floating on top. There was ice cream, chips, party favors and of course, cake. His cake, shown below, looks like a product of Detroit Awrey’s Bakery.  My cousin Jan corrected me and said it was probably a Sanders cake. Sanders also made cakes and the best chocolate miniatures ever. But I digress.

warren_party_strip

Because I count 11 candles on the cake, I’m going to say it was his 10th birthday which would make it 1958.  The 11th candle would be 1 to grow on.  There is no sign of his youngest brother who wasn’t born until July of 1959.

Unlike the Sepia Saturday prompt, there is no bus and no Santa in my photo but the people are sitting facing each other and it was taken during the 1950s.

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Sisters Mary V and Doris Graham 1933

Grahams, Photographs, sepia saturday,

This photo of my mother, Doris  and her sister, Mary V. Graham was taken in 1933.  My mother was 10 years old and her sister was 13 years old. The photograph was taken on Belle Isle, an island park in the Detroit River between Detroit and Canada. You can see the river in the background.

They lived with their parents, Fannie and Mershell on Theodore Street. My grandfather worked at Ford Motor Co. at the River Rouge Plant. They had a dog named Bonzo. Their little brother, Howard, had died the year before from complications of diabetes and scarlet fever.

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Doris Graham, High School Senior – 1940

Grahams, Photographs, sepia saturday
Eastern High School

In 1940 my mother, Doris Graham, was a senior at Eastern High School in Detroit.  At that time it stood on East Grand Blvd and Mack Ave, a mile from her home at 6638 Theodore.  Eastern was torn down in the late 1960s.  She was copy editor of the school newspaper “The Indian”, a member of the school Honor Society “The Chiefs” and regularly achieved all “A” report cards, “A” being the highest grade. My mother was in a variety of school activities , but the only photo of her in the Year book is the one below.  She is on the lower right, writing.

My mother graduated in January  of 1940 and entered Wayne University the next month.  I wrote about the cost of attending Wayne in 1940 here.  You can read an article my mother wrote for the school paper and see a report card here.  You will notice I used the above photo in that post. It fit so well with this week’s prompt that I had to feature.  You can read about my mother and her family in the 1940 census here.

My mother is the one on the far right. It says about her “Doris Graham – Victory; memorial committee, house secretary, homeroom secretary, hall guard, Mixed Chorus, Indian Staff, Chiefs; Intelligence high; she’ll succeed by and by.”  “Victory House” was her homeroom.
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My Cousin Was a Telephone Operator

Grahams, Photographs, sepia saturday,
Marilyn in the wagon at Nanny’s and Poppy’s. Detroit Michigan, 1955.

This week the Sepia Saturday theme is telephones or telephone operators. I would like to write about my cousin Marilyn’s amazing career as a telephone operator for Bell Telephone Company in Detroit.  She started working in 1981 and continued until her retirement in 2008.

My cousin Marilyn at work.
My cousin Marilyn at work.  Photo taken in 1989.

My cousin sent me a photograph of herself at work with the phone company. She wrote a bit about her years at there:

At Michigan Bell Telephone Co, which turned into AT&T Inc. Worked from 1981 to 2008 (about 28 years)

  • Information operator (“What city?”)
  • Also worked as a clerk in the company and
  • A telephone booth $ collector (Drove a big truck with a hard had, lots of keys hanging on side – 2 way radio “walkie talkie.”

Unfortunately I do not have any photographs of Marilyn at the switchboard so I am inserting a photo grab from one of my favorite movie, Danzón (María Novaro, 1991). The whole movie (Spanish, no subtitles) is available on YouTube in more than 10 parts. I would advise renting the movie. It has everything, dancing, true love, a fine young man on a boat, good hearted prostitutes, female impersonators, friendship, motherhood, aging. I found it on Netflix here and also cheap on Amazon.

Telephone Operators in the movie Danzón (María Novaro, 1991). María Rojo, Carmen Salinas, Tito Vasconcelos.
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‘Rocco, Smitty – Getting a ticket for fishing!

Cleages, Photographs, sepia saturday

This photograph was taken at “The Meadows” in Sinclair County Michigan in 1939. Evidently “Rocco and Smitty were fishing without a license in the river that ran through.

Here are other posts about the Meadows

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