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.
Last Will and Testament of George Reed
You can read about George Reed’s life at this post George A. Reed
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!
Lillian Louise Reed Shoemaker – my grandmother Pearl Reed Cleage’s older sister. A gift from a new found cousin, before and after I photoshoped it.
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.
Yesterday I posted a chart of 7 generations of my maternal side of the family’s work history. Today I’m going to do the same with the paternal side of the family. I have found Lewis and Judy Cleage in the 1870 US Census. I also found their marriage record. I am not convinced that all the children listed living with them are their children, if their ages are correct. But having no other information, I put them in. I do not know what work the children did in the future. I think I will look for them again. Annie Green Reed had two husbands and four more children but I left them off of this chart. They were all laborers or farmers or housewives. Both Buford Averitt and Robert Allen come to the family tree as white men who did not acknowledge their black offspring as far as we know. Oral history and records of birth, marriage and death account for their making it onto my chart. I’ve pinpointed Buford but there are several possibilities with Robert so he has no job here. My direct line is highlighted in yellow. You can see the same chart for my maternal line here Maternal Family Tree of Workers.
Miss Pearl D. Reed The violin recital of Clarence Cameron White will be given this evening at Simpson Chapel under the direction of the Colored Y.M.C.A. Orchestra. He will be supported by the best local talent. The following program will be given:
Overture – “Northern Lights,” Y.M.C.A. Orchestra
Violin – Hungarian Rhapsodie, Clarence Cameron White
Song – “Oh Dry Those Tears,” Miss Pearl D. Reed.”
Piano – “Vaise in C sharp minor (b) Polanaise in A major. Mrs. Alberta J. Grubbs.
Violin – (a) Tran Merel: (b) Scherzo, Clarence Cameron White
Intermission
Orchestra – “The Spartan,” orchestra
Vocal – :Good-by”, Miss Pearl D. Cleage
Readings A.A. Taylor.
Selection – “The Bird and Brook,” orchestra
Clarence Cameron White ably sustained his reputation as a violinist at Simpson Chapel church last week under the auspices of of the Y.M.C.A. Mr. White plays a clean violin; he gets all out of it there is – dragging his bow from tip to tip, and more if it were possible. He did not attempt any of the great big things – the big concertos, and perhaps for the best. Yet he showed his capability for such work and at the same time satisfied his audience. His encores as a rule were selections that the audience recognized and through the beautiful renditions it could easily form some estimate of his playing ability. Mr. White was a decided success. Seldom is has a good class of music been so thoroughly appreciated. He was supported at the piano by Samuel Ratcliffe whose playing was commendable. Miss pearl D. Reed proved an acceptable contralto singer. The orchestra under Alfred A. Taylor did some very effective work. Mr. Taylor proved a reader of ability; he read several of his own selections. The audience was magnificent and paid the utmost attention to the renditions.”
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| From my Cleage grandparents photographs. Nobody remembers who they are. |
Around 1975 I asked my paternal grandmother, Pearl Reed Cleage, to send me the names of her parents and grandparents . I actually sent her a chart to fill out but instead she sent me back a piece of loose leaf paper with a list of her children and their professions and her parents and grandparents and my grandfather’s parents. I have yet to find anyone with the name of the man she listed as her father. He is not the father listed on anybodies, including her own, marriage license or birth record or death certificate. She has her grandmother listed as a Cherokee Indian but when we did the DNA test with my aunt Gladys several years ago the results came back from Family Tree HVR1 Haplogroup L3e2* which is found in West Africa.
The newspaper clipping on the left includes a photograph of my grandmother Pearl Reed from The Indianapolis Star, Friday May 8 1908. She sang at church and at many community events.
Paternal Maternal DNA line – from the youngest to the farthest back in time fore-mother we can name.
My cousins grandaughters – Lyric
My cousins daughters – Shashu, Jann, Sadya, Lillieanna, Sofia
My cousins – Jan, Anna, Maria
Aunts – Barbara Pearl, Gladys Helen, Anna Cecelia
Pearl Doris Reed 1886 (Lebanon, KY) – 1982 (Reed City, Michigan)
Anna Allen abt 1849 (Kentucky) – 1911 (Indianapolis, IN)
Clara Hoskins abt 1829 (KY) – ? (KY)
This line also includes my grandmother Pearl’s sisters and their descendents.
Aunt Josie’s daughter and her daughter Bessie and any female descendents she has.
Aunt Sarah Busby and her daughters and granddaughters and on down.
Aunt Louise Shoemaker and her daughter, granddaughter, and on down
Aunt Minnie Mullen’s daughters, granddaughters and on down