Theresa Pearl, mother Blanch, and Thomas Perry. Names based on birth dates and the other photo.
Hugh Marion b. 1910. Thomas Perry b. 1916. Theresa Pearl b. 1914. Anna Roberta b. 1908.
Recently I received a scan of the photograph on the left from my cousin Jan. The reverse side of the postcard type photo says “Theresa Pearl’s Birthday March 10, 1919” The handwriting looks as though the same person who wrote on the back of this photo Christmas card of Theresa Pearl. I am not sure that the woman in the photo is their mother, Blanch. I am checking. I hope I am right because I have no other photos of her.
Note: Yes, that is Blanch Celeste Reed Averette, the mother. I was able to confirm it with some of her descendants.
Below is a photograph of my father Albert at about 3 years old in a little dress. Younger brother Louis is sitting on the chair in a long gown. It was taken in Kalamazoo Michigan about 1916.
What education did your mother receive? Your grandmothers? Great-grandmothers? Note any advanced degrees or special achievements.
On My Maternal Side
My 3X great grandmother, Annie Williams, was born about 1820 in Virginia into slavery. According to the 1880 Census, when she was about 60, she spoke English and could not read or write.
Eliza - my 2x great grandmother
Her daughter, my 2X great grandmother, Eliza Williams Allen, was born in Alabama about 1839 into slavery. She was freed by 1860. According to the 1910 census, she was about 67, spoke English and could not read or write
Jennie - my greatgrandmother
Her daughter, my great grandmother, Jennie Allen Turner was born free in Montgomery, Alabama in 1866. According to the 1880 Census, she was 13 years old, had attended school in the past year, spoke English and was literate. I found one of my favorite books at her house “Lydia of the Pines.”
Fannie - my maternal grandmother
Her daughter, my Grandmother Fannie Mae Turner Graham, was born in 1888 in Lowndes County, Alabama. She grew up in Montgomery. According to the 1900 census, she was 11 years old, at school, spoke English and was literate. My mother told me that when Fannie graduated from high school – State Normal, was offered a scholarship to Fisk but refused it and took a job in her uncles store, which she managed until she married in 1918. Also according to my mother, Fannie could quickly add long columns of numbers in her head.
Doris - my mother
My mother , Doris Graham Cleage, was born in Detroit in 1923. She graduated from Eastern High School in Detroit and received a full scholarship to Wayne State where she earned a BA with distinction as a Sociology major in June/1944. She returned to school in 1951 and earned teaching certification. In 1958 she became a masters candidate in education, completing her Master’s of Education Degree in the fall of 1958. She took postmasters classes in education during a sabbatical in 1963. She also took evening classes in 1968, when I was a senior at Wayne State.
My great grandmother, Emma Jones Turner (My grandmother Fannie’s paternal grandmother) was born about 1840 in South Carolina into slavery. According to the 1880, 1900 and 1910 census she spoke English and was literate. I wish I knew more about her. I never heard a story about her. After my grandmother’s father was killed when she was 4 years old, her mother broke all ties with her husband’s family.
On My Paternal Side
Celia - my great grandmother
My great grandmother Celia Rice Cleage Sherman was my grandfather’s mother. She was born about 1855 into slavery in Virginia and brought to Tennessee as a child. She was about 10 when freedom came. In the 1880 census she could neither read nor write. By the 1930 census she spoke English and could read but could not write. I wonder if my grandfather or his siblings taught her to read when they went to school.
My 2X great grandmother, Clara Green was born into slavery about 1829 in Kentucky. She was my grandmother Pearl Reed Cleage’s grandmother. In the 1880 census she was listed as about 55, spoke English and could not read or write.
Her daughter, my great grandmother Anna Allen Reed was born about 1849 in Kentucky into slavery. According to the 1910 Census she spoke English but could not read or write. Anna’s four older children were illiterate while the four youngest were literate.
Pearl - my paternal grandmother
Her youngest daughter, my grandmother Pearl Reed Cleage was born in Lebanon, Kentucky in 1886. In the 1900 census she was 16 and where it says if you were or were not in school it says “Book 1” I don’t know what that means. At any rate she was literate and spoke English. My Aunt Barbara told me she finished high school. I remember my grandparent’s house being full of books.
George Reed was my grandmother Pearl Reed Cleage’s oldest brother. He gave his birth date as January 10, 1867, in Lebanon, Marion County, Kentucky. He never married and had no children but as the oldest in a home without a man, he became the man of the house. He never learned to read or write and earned his living as a laborer. We have no photographs of him.
George is found in the 1870 through 1910 Census with his mother Anna Reed and various siblings. After Anna died and Pearl married I haven’t found him in any census but I did find him in the Indianapolis City Directory again in 1930. Turned out, George was not listed in the 1920 or the 1930 census due to the census taker stopping at the end of the 2800 block of Kenwood (both times). George does appear in the 1930 and 1940 Indianapolis City Directory at 2730 Kenwood Avenue. Pearl married in 1910 and mother Anna died in 1911, which means that George lived at 2730 Kenwood, alone, for over thirty years. Today the 2700 block of Kenwood is a parking lot.
George is listed as 3 in the 1870 census and 13 in the 1880 census. This would make him born in 1867. George is listed as 28 in the 1900 which would make him born in 1872, same as on his death certificate. Clearly there is a five year discrepancy in his age as reported on various documents.
According to my aunt, George migrated to Indianapolis as a young man of 15 to work at the Van Camp Canneries in 1887. Since there are two colored George Reed’s in Indianapolis during the 1880s we need to be careful here. Our George is listed in 1891 at 11 Willard Ave. There is a George E in 1889 and a George in 1888 in the City Directory that also may have been him. I believe that George did arrive in Indianapolis in 1887, however he would have been twenty years old and not fifteen at that time. During the next several years the whole family followed George to Indianapolis.
My Aunt Anna told me that a friend of her parents called them from Indianapolis in 1945 to tell them that George had been found wandering around disorientated. My grandparents went and got him and he stayed with them in Detroit where he died later that year. He died on May 28, 1945. His body was sent back to Indianapolis by train and he was buried in Crown Hill Cemetery. There is a simple marble slab with his name and dates on it. I visited once. You can see it here.
Click to enlarge
George Reed Funeral
“Funeral services for George Reed, 73, colored, who died Monday at the home of Dr. and Mrs. A. B. Cleage, Detroit, were held today at the C. M. C. Willis mortuary, with the Rev. J. A. Alexander, pastor of Bethel A. M. E. church, officiating. Burial was in Crown Hill. the body was accompanied here by Dr. and Mrs. Cleage and Henry Cleage, Detroit. Mr. Reed became ill here a year and a half ago and was taken to Detroit where he had lived with his sister, Mrs. Cleage. Survivors, besides Mrs. Cleage, are two other sisters, Mrs. Sara Busby, Benton Harbor, Mich; and Mrs. Minnie Mullins, Detroit; and two brothers, Clarence Reed, Chicago, and Hugh Reed, who has lived in the West several years.”
According to the Administrator’s Final Report there was $18,462.91 (Worth $243,814.95 in today’s dollars.) on deposit at the Railroad Men’s Building and Loan Association. He had a dividend on a savings account for $193.50 in 1945 and another $195.24 for 1946. Royalty from Rubber Stock came to $3.00, which brought his assets to $18,854.65. He also owned a single home at 2730 Kenwood, Ave. Included in the $1,025 costs for the administration of the Estate are $9.65 railroad fare to carry his remains back to Indianapolis and $75 to the Hoosier Monument Company.
George Reed was my grandmother Pearl Reed Cleage’s oldest brother. Their mother, Annie Ray Allen Reed, was a single mother for most of her life and George was the man of the house. His resting place in Crown Hill Cemetery looks very peaceful.
Thanks to Megan Heyl and her husband for taking this photograph.
Thanks to Megan Heyl and her husband for taking this photograph.
Recently I have had great luck finding important family information in online newspapers. I had not used Ancestry’s newspaper collection for a long time because it was so awkward to use. Imagine my surprise when I noticed there was a tab right up there with ‘Historical Records’ and ‘Family Trees’ called ‘Stories and Publications’. I decided to put in a few names and see what I could find. I found little items of arrests, obituaries, marriages and the article below about how my Grandmother Pearl’s sister, Sarah Reed Busby, got around the lack of sugar during WW 2 by using aspirin to can her berries. I had just heard about this article from a cousin I met several weeks ago and there it was on my computer! I took a break in the middle of writing this post to go look again and found a photograph of Robert Chivis, who I had no photo of previously. Robert is the grandson of another sister of my grandmother Pearl.
All Around Our Town
Canning Tip–Use Aspirin!
Did you ever hear of putting up fruit with aspirin? Mrs. Sarah Busby, 1238 Broadway, a first-rate colored cook of many years’ experience, is doing it and doing it successfully. She has the sugar rationing on canning licked, for no sugar is needed.
Her method is this: sterilize the glass jars, pack them full of rasberrries, and on the top of each pint drop one aspirin tablet. Fill the jar with water that has been chilled ice-cold in the refrigerator, and seal quickly. No cooking is needed.
This method, which Mrs. Busby discovered some time ago as a canning tip in a newspaper, is recommended for strawberries. She also has used it effectively on both red and black rasberries and is contemplating trying it out on dew berries.
The fruit retains its shape and color without becoming mushy, and while the taste is a little on the tart side its flavor is true to the fruit.
Mrs. Busby’s cooking experience has included 28 years at the Washington resort, where she annually canned around 500 jars of fruit jams, jellies, and pickles every summer.
When pharamcist Jack Brown of the Battlement Drug company was asked about the chemical reaction of aspirin on raspberries he said it was o.k. It’s the acetylsalicylic (you say it) acid in asprin that acts as a germicide and stops fermentation.
Mrs. Busby insists that the water on the berries must be very, very cold. She says not to be alarmed when the water on the aspirin “riles it up” for that settles down after sealing. For a quart of fruit, she uses two aspirin.
Right this way, ladies – no more headaches over the canning season!
A few weeks ago, a cousin from a “lost” branch of my grandmother Pearl Reed Cleage’s family found me through Ancestry.com. Her father and his siblings grew up thinking they were of Italian descent. My cousin was trying to find out what ship they came over on when she discovered they weren’t Italian, they were African American and my cousins. Since then we have been exchanging information and photographs. The newest one from her is the top photo. It shows her great grandmother, Louise Reed Shoemaker, with two girls. There is no information on the photograph.
The photograph on the bottom is a photograph from my grandmother’s collection of their brother Hugh Reed’s children. The girls look a little older in my cousin’s photo but to me it’s clear they are they same people, even though they weren’t able to get a good scan yet.
In my new batch of photos, I found another photograph in the #160 series that I showed in my last post, here. I didn’t notice, until after I posted this photo a few minutes ago, that there were words on the building, “Levy Bros.” “Falls City Ferry and Transportation Co.” Looking at the landscape, behind the ferry and building, I saw a distant shore. No longer looked like Athens, TN! Which is why I deleted that post and started looking things up.
I googled “Falls City Ferry and Transportation Co.” and found this entry in ‘The Encyclopedia of Louisville’ page 286. “The last ferry operation was between Louisville and Jeffersonville. The original company, facing difficult competition from electric interurban car service over the Big Four Bridge beginning in 1905, was reorganized as the Falls City Ferry and Transportation Co. in December 1920, with David B.G. Rose as principal shareholder. Among the minority shareholders was Harland D. Sanders, later of Kentucky Fried Chicken fame. Though the passenger load declined through the 1920’s vehicular traffic increased as automobiles proliferated. There was as yet no vehicular bridge between Louisville and Jeffersonville. Fares were low. During the 1920’s pedestrians were carried for five cents. Once aboard they could ride all day for that modest fee.”
Louisville is not on the Detroit, MI to Athens, TN route. It is on the route from Athens, TN to Indianapolis, IN, where Uncle Hugh Reed still lived. In fact, I have a photograph of my father and his brothers taken with Uncle Hugh’s sons, perhaps on the same trip. In this photo we have front row, Henry and Hugh Cleage. In the back row, Albert Cleage (my father), Hugh Reed Jr, Thomas Reed and Louis Cleage. About 1921 in Indianapolis, IN. My father is wearing the same outfit.
Clarence Elwood Reed was the youngest son of Anna Reed and the brother next in age of to my grandmother Pearl. When I was collecting stories about the family my aunts and uncles told me that Clarence was a good looking man who went to Chicago from Indianapolis, never married and lived a wild life.
Clarence missed the 1880 census in Lebanon, Kentucky where I found his mother and older siblings because he wasn’t born until 1882. His mother appears in the Indianapolis, IN city directory in 1893 and I assume that her younger children were with her, joining the older children who had relocated from Kentucky around 1885. Clarence would have been 11 years old. In 1893 he appears in the City Directory in his own right, still living at home at 529 Willard, with his mother and older brothers but now out working as a laborer. In the 1900 Census he is described as doing day labor, being literate and single at 18. The family has moved down the street to 225 Willard. In 1906 he has moved with the rest of the family north of downtown Indianapolis to 2730 Kenwood Ave. Clarence is still laboring. Unfortunately Willard Street is gone and 2730 Kenwood is a parking lot, so no photos of those houses.
In 1908 Clarence married Elnora Jackson in Chicago. I only found the certificate in the last week on Family Search. Clarence was about 22 and Elnora was 35. This marriage didn’t last long. They were divorced February 3, 1911.
In 1915 Clarence is back in Indianapolis, IN where he married Josephine Smith. She was born in 1888. I actually found this marriage record, which I sent for, before finding the first marriage. This record said that this was the second marriage and that the first ended in divorce in 1911. His job is listed as laborer.
In 1918 Clarence had moved back to Chicago where he was laboring at the Wilson Packing House. He is still married to Josephine, who he lists as the person to contact on his WW1 draft information card. He is described as Negro, short, of medium height with brown eyes and black hair.
I cannot find Clarence or Josephine in the 1920 or 1930 census anywhere in the United States. In 1942 Clarence turns up in the WW2 draft registration cards. He is described as a light complexioned Negro with black hair and brown eyes. His contact person this time is Adela Reed. New wife? Daughter? I have no idea. Can’t find her in 1920 or 1930 either. He is laboring in Swift and Company Union Stock Yard and is 62, but actually 60 because they took two years off of the birth year that all the other records show and make it 1880.
In 1946 Clarence is mentioned in his oldest brother George’s estate papers as Clarence Reed, brother in Chicago Illinois. And that is the last I find for Clarence. So far no death record. And no photographs.
I plan to send for the application for a marriage license from his first marriage.
