My parents were married November 17 1943, at Plymouth Congregational Church in Detroit. They left immediately for Lexington Kentucky, where my father was pastor of Chandler Memorial Church until he accepted the position above as co-pastor of the interracial Fellowship Church in San Francisco. I had never seen this photograph before my cousin scanned it for me yesterday. There is no newspaper name or date on the clipping. Perhaps it appeared in The Sun, a black newspaper, founded in San Fransisco in 1944.
A photograph of Fellowship Church in San Francisco from my father’s album.
A photo of my grandfather, Dr. Albert B. Cleage jr. standing in a very heavy looking row boat. It was taken at Idlewild, Michigan in the early 1920s. Because my grandfather has the same tie and the same tired expression in both photographs, I believe they were taken on the same day. My aunt Gladys appears in the group photo and appears to be 2 or 3 years old so that would place it at 1925 or 1926.
I recognize my father in the back row with the cap on the far left. Next to him is his cousin Helen Mullins, and my grandmother Pearl Reed Cleage, two people I don’t know and my grandfather is at the end of that row holding a cigar. My aunt Barbara stands next to him. My aunt Gladys appears to be brushing her teeth and my Uncle Henry is chewing tobacco.
The three photos below were taken earlier. My father and Henry look several years younger than they do in the photograph above. These two were part of a batch of photos all with the number 671 written on the back.
Henry, Louis, Helen Mullins , Evelyn Dougles, Cornelius Henderson (who appeared in last weeks post), Toddy (my father) I don’t know who Helen Mullins is holding. Maybe my aunt Barbara? Neither can I identify the dog.
I recognize Henry with his arms over his head, standing on the left and I see my grandmother peeking around another ladies hat. The dog in the boat photo also appears as a blur on the far left.
The two photographs below were taken in 1918 and feature my father, two of his younger brothers and a family friend. The water in the background of the second photo made me think they were taken on Belle Isle or perhaps across the Detroit River in Canada. I thought that I would be able to place the photos by using the cannon in the second picture. I was able to find several cannons in the Detroit area, unfortunately none looked like the one in the photo. The presence of a family friend makes me think it was taken in Detroit and not on a family trip to another state. At least it was labeled with names and dates.
Henry Cleage, Cornelius Henderson, Louis Cleage, Albert Cleage. 1918 Detroit.
Louis Cleage, Cornelius Henderson, Albert Cleage, Henry Cleage.
The prompt for this weeks Sepia Saturday is a photograph of a boy in front of a theater next a sign advertising a movie about an ex-convict. Standing on the far right side is a man with his head cut off by the photographer. I looked through my photos and was disappointed to find no sepia headless ones. I thought I had seen some in a box of photographs that came from my uncle Henry Cleage.
I came across this photograph in the box. Most of the photographs are of Henry’s first wife, Alice Stanton. She is the one in the front holding the purse. I noticed Doris Graham, my mother and Henry’s second wife, dancing in the background. I do not know who either of the men are. The photo was taken in 1939 or 1940 in Detroit. Henry and Alice were married on 3 September, 1941 in Detroit and divorced not too many years later. At first I thought that this photograph was taken the same day as the one below, but when I compared them, the news photo was of a much posher affair.
“Oh, Mr. Photographer! That’s what pretty Doris Graham (left) probably said as she glided by in the arms of Robert Douglass … Chesterfield club…” The incomplete caption at the bottom of this photo from my grandmother Fannie Graham’s scrapbook. Doris Graham, my mother. The newspaper was the Detroit Tribune which was published by my grandmother’s cousin, Edward McCall. The date was added by my grandmother.
For some reason, at this point, I noticed the address on the box that the photographs were kept in. It was addressed to Dr. L. J. Cleage at Homer Phillips Hospital in St.Louis.
The box.
Had my Uncle Louis done his medical internship at Homer Phillips Hospital? If so, it was probably around 1940. Although both Louis and my father were enumerated with their parents on Scotten Ave. in Detroit, both were listed as absent from the home. You can see them here in the 1940 Census. I went to Ancestry.com and looked for records for Louis Jacob Cleage. In the 1940 census he was indexed with his parents but there was also a Dr. Louis Cleage in St. Louis, MO. There he was, living in the doctor’s housing at Homer G. Phillips, as a Jr. intern.
Homer G. Phillips Hospital and surrounding area 1940.
The story of Homer G. Phillips hospital is a familiar one – black citizens tired of second class health care, black doctors tired of not being able to hospitalize and care for their own patients, of being unable to practice in the hospitals in their city. Click this link to read more about Homer G. Phillips Hospital’s interesting history. My husband’s younger siblings were born in St. Louis. He thought some of them might have been born at Homer G. Phillips. As luck would have it, his sister called right about then and confirmed that she and all of the youngest five Williams’ were born there from 1950 to 1963.
I seemed to be on a roll, so I decided to see if my father was enumerated in 1940 as a student at Oberlin where he attended Seminary. He did not turn up anywhere else outside of his parents home in the 1940 census. However, he was listed in the 1940 Oberlin Student Directory. His birth date is off by 9 years, but the home address is his parent’s Scotten Ave. address in Detroit.
After all this it was an anti-climax to find one photo with half a head missing – Henry holding up some fish while standing by Lake Idlewild. Since the focus is on the fish, perhaps this doesn’t really count. My family photographers seemed to have been more likely to leave lots of space with everybody crowded to the center than they were to chop off a head. Or maybe they just tossed all of those headless photographs.
This post continues a series using the Alphabet to go through streets that were significant in my life as part of the Family History Through the Alphabet Challenge. This week I remember living on St. John Road in Simpson County, Mississippi. However, since I already have an “S” street coming up and I needed an “R” street, I am using our mailing address, Route 1, Box 173 1/2, Braxton, MS. I don’t have a photo of our mailbox so I am using a return address from a letter I wrote back then.
We moved to Simpson County, Mississippi in the fall of 1975. I was pregnant with our third daughter who was born April 12, 1976 at the home of our midwife. We had never lived in the real country before this move. Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina, outside of Charleston, was the closest we had been. My husband was working as an organizer with the Emergency Land Fund (E.L.F.), a group to help black farmers save their land, which was being lost at an alarming rate. We first lived at Rt. 1 Box 38 where the Emergency Land Fund had a model farm. Maybe I should say we helped setting up a model farm, complete with rabbits in the pen and tomatoes in Green houses and our own milk goats and chickens. When the Emergency Land Fund wanted to move us to the Mississippi Delta to run a soy bean farm we opted to stay in Simpson County and Jim quit working for E.L.F. We had to move from the farm and so bought our first house and 5 acres several miles away. The house was a Jim Walters House that had been built by former volunteers to the Voice of Calvary Church in Mendenhall. You can buy the house in various stages of completion and the more you finish yourself, the cheaper the cost. It was from the plans in this picture. Unfortunately there was not a big lake in the yard and there was no danger of flooding. We were much more likely to have a tornado come through and that caused me many anxious nights as storms rolled through and we were 10 feet off the ground. There was indoor water for the bath and the kitchen sink but there was no indoor toilet. There was an outhouse outback. There was electricity and my husband, Jim, hooked up the washing machine. It wasn’t too hard to run pipes since they were all exposed under the house. That caused problems when we forgot to drip the water when temperatures dropped. Eventually we did get an inside toilet but it was several years coming. Three of my six children were born in Mississippi.
A letter I wrote home from Mississippi not too long after we moved in.
January 19, 1977
Dear Mommy and Henry,
Here’s your late gift box. I’m sending some books – not to keep but to read (smile). The Tatasaday book should be read with the Iks in mind. I hope the hats fit and the cake is o.k. It didn’t come out as god as the last but i figured i’d better send it on.
It snowed here – about 2 1/2 inches and it’s still on the ground! Boy oh boy – first time the temp went to 6 degrees here – ever and most snow since 1958. Jilo’s schools been closed 2 days. We went for a walk in the woods yesterday. it was nice. Jim’s been going out with a neighbor down the road to cut pulpwood. Do you have those big trucks up there? He likes it fine. But it keeps him busy and working nights.
The goats are fine. 1 month until 3 more are due. The chickens are giving us 6>9 eggs daily with 13 hens. Still 4 aren’t laying i think. The midwife’s parents came over and told me to keep them locked up until non and keep food and water there and they’d probably start up – and they did. The garden isn’t started – luckily for it.
Ife cut her hair in places so i just gave her an afro. She looks so grown up! It looks nice though. Ayanna has 4 teeth and crawls funny but gets wher she’s going and is still happy. I braided her hair last week in the front where it was long enough. it rounds her head up so she looks more like the other two round heads at that age. The sun just went down and it sure droped the temp in here. We have solar heat benefit of those 2 south facing double doors.
Jim’s fine and we both read and liked the book. We had his other one – Welcome to Hard Times – have you read it? I’m ok too. Not keeping a Betty Crocker house but at least keeping up with the dishes. Jilo’s fine too, has had a sub(stitute teacher) since Christmas vacation and seems to make them work a bit harder – the teacher who had that grade before.
Write soon – Love Kris
P.S. Ife did the farm picture. She did it by looking as at a picture in Jilo’s cook book. Isn’t that good perspective and stuff. I told her we’ll start doing from life soon.
Also, the pigs still alive in this cold. it’s a wonder.
Going to milk the goats.
For more about living in Mississippi, including goats, killing chickens, heating with a wood stove, midwives, friends and work shoes read these posts.
Today would have been Mignon’s birthday. She was born in Tennessee in 1909. Her parents, Moses and Jean Walker, were old friends of my grandparents from Montgomery, Alabama. My grandparents roomed with them when they first arrived in Detroit.
I didn’t have a wedding. My parents and grandparents didn’t leave wedding photographs. I thought I would share this recently taken family photograph, the aftermath of 43+ years together.
I suggested we do it because I love to find multigenerational group photos of past generations. I thought we should do one. Now just have to be sure everybody has a hard, labeled copy along with the digital one.
Front – Pearl and me. Back – my grandmother, Pearl Cleage, uncle Henry and grandfather Albert B. Cleage sr.
We were at my uncle Louis’ cottage in Idlewild. I remember my grandmother reading to us from the book “Told Under the Red Umbrella” that summer. The electricity went off during a storm once and she read to us by the kerosene lamps until the lights came back on.
