A Central Congregational Church Youth Fellowship dance held in the basement of the parsonage at 2254 Chicago Blvd, Detroit. You can see the jukebox there, right under the clock. I was too young at the time to go to Youth Fellowship, but at other times my sister and I went into the big, empty room with the pictures of the hunt on the wall as we roamed around the huge house. Those Youth Fellowship members looked so grown t0 10 year old me. Now they look so, so young. Frozen in time. Dancing to the jukebox.
For this weeks Sepia Saturday foursome, I put together 4 postcards that my grandfather sent my grandmother that I am not able to fit into my A-Z Challenge format. They were all sent by him the summer he worked on the steamer Eastern States between Detroit and Buffalo. I wonder what he meant when he wrote that he sent her a song on two of the cards. The messages match the pictures in the same space – top left, bottom right etc.
Top left.
Buffalo – 7/28/’09
Dear Pearl – I see that a new danger has arisen about which I must warn you – beware of the waves as well as of snakes and ___. I guess you remember my advice. A.B.C.
Top right.
Aug 21 – ’09
I mail you a “song” I heard yesterday & liked. Don’t laugh at my taste, the sentiment is what appealed to me. A.B.C.
Lower left
Buffalo – 7-20-’09
Dear Pearl – I was disappointed yesterday and today in Buffalo in not getting a letter – “If a body write a body and get no reply, is it wrong for a body to write a body and ask the reason – Why? Albert
Lower right
Detroit
Sept 3 – 09
Hope you will like the accompanying music. I do. Your letter and the P___ will be mailed to you Sunday. Albert
My flood photographs are not sepia but they do involve cars and a flood. In 2009 my daughter’s Atlanta apartment complex flooded as a result of days of rain, flooded Peachtree Creek and blocked drains. My daughter didn’t have to stay in a hotel because she has family in town. The quotes below are her comments.
“Yesterday they put up notices on half of the buildings, all the ones that didn’t have steps to the first floor apartments, that their leases were terminated and anything left in the apartment would be thrown away today! They haven’t let any of us back in and we are free to break our leases. Today we were told it will be 60 more days before they are able to let people back in. No one has to pay rent until they can move back in, and they are putting people in hotels until they can get back in but how can anyone move back to a place that has flooded this badly twice in 5 years (and they didn’t tell anyone about the previous flood)???”
“Some photos I took off of news websites like CNN and local tv… others I got from folks who were there and some were taken by Ayanna and Daddy… I didn’t have my camera with me. Most of the photos were very early in the flood. The three buildings to the far left ended up with over 3 feet of water in them… and in this photo the water hadn’t reached them yet.”
“With Our Cars and My Apartment.”
“Getting the kids out… Wading through the waters to the drier side of the parking lot…”
When I saw the prompt, I immediately thought of some photos of a building in Detroit that my uncle Henry Cleage took. I found them in the first place I looked (amazingly). They aren’t labeled or dated but looking at a few old Detroit buildings I found they are of the old County Building. I would date them around 1950 from the people and cars. These are only a few of the many. Court was held in the building and Henry was a lawyer. Perhaps he had some cases there.
Old Detroit County Building
“The cornerstone was laid Oct. 20, 1897, in a ceremony that the Detroit Free Press called at the time “simple but impressive.” Under a headline in capital letters proclaiming, “It is laid!”, the Free Press wrote that it had rained all morning the day of the ceremony, but just at 2 p.m., as officials were gathering at Old City Hall, the sun broke and the clouds parted. A band led the procession down Cadillac Square to a platform decked out in American flags in front of the county building, where Judge Edgar O. Durfee had the honor of laying the cornerstone. Judge Robert E. Frazer gave what the Free Press called a “stirring address,” and Mayor William C. Maybury also participated.” Go to Old Wayne County Building – Historic Detroit to read a detailed history of the Old County Building.
“One of the building’s most prominent features is the pair of large sculptures flanking its center tower and portico. The copper sculptures are known as quadrigae, a Roman chariot drawn by four horses. The pieces were done by New York sculptor J. Massey Rhind, who intended the quadrigae to symbolize progress. They feature a woman standing in a chariot led by four horses with two smaller figures on either side.” From Old Wayne County Building – Historic Detroit
Mary Vee 1940 – In front of Plymouth Congregational Church.
My mother’s sister, Mary V. Elkins, got a job at the County Building in 1940.
“June 10, 1940 — Mary Virginia has just gotten (through Jim and May) a good job at the County Bldg — God is so good to us. M.V. won high honor in her business Institute for typing and short hand.” Fannie Mae Turner Graham’s little diary.
Mary V. attended business school after she graduated from Eastern High School, then worked for awhile at her cousin’s Newspaper office until he helped her get a job in the old county building. She held the job for many years and received a proclamation from the City of Detroit for her service to the city during a Family Reunion when she was in her 80s.
Wayne County Courthouse
Old Wayne County Building could soon be allowed to seek buyers. “A Wayne County Commission committee approved a nonbinding agreement today that would settle a nearly 3-year-old lawsuit against the owners of the Old Wayne County Building and allow the owners to seek potential buyers.” From an April, 2013 article in the Detroit Free Press.
When I was growing up, this was the entry way to the Detroit Main Library. It opened onto Woodward Ave. We probably started going soon after we moved back to Detroit when I was 4. There was a man who stood there, a very friendly older man who looked at your books when you were going out to make sure you had checked them out. Younger than I am now, he was very friendly and always smiled at my sister and me. He wore a blue suit and had a round head, with little hair.
Woodward Entry. Click to enlarge.
To the right was the check-out counter. The door you can see to the right led into the children’s room. The picture books and early reading books were right inside the door to the left. Straight ahead, against the back wall were the books for older readers – “Invisible Island”, the Narnia books and others. My mother brought us here often, interspersed with trips to libraries closer to our home.At the time I don’t remember noticing the high ceilings and the murals specifically, but they were the background for my library experience. In 1963, an addition was added on the Cass side of the library. With building and lawn, it occupies the entire block. For reasons I don’t understand, most of the books were moved into the new area, leaving the old one behind. The book checker moved to the new side of the building and continued to sit there all day and look at books. He was there when I studied on the new side all through college and he was still there in 1972 when I started taking my two year old daughter to the library. I wonder what his name was.
Cass addition.
To read more about the Main library
I Met My Husband in the Library “I usually studied in the sociology room of the Main Library, which was in the middle of Wayne’s campus. As I was leaving to go to my next class that day, a guy came up and asked if I was Rev. Cleage’s daughter. I said I was.”
Detroit Public Library“Designed by Cass Gilbert, the Detroit Public Library was constructed with Vermont marble and serpentine Italian marble trim in an Italian Renaissance style. His son, Cass Gilbert, Jr. was a partner with Francis J. Keally in the design of the library’s additional wings added in 1963. Among his other buildings, Cass Gilbert designed the United States Supreme Court Building in Washington, DC, the Minnesota State Capitol and the Woolworth Building in New York City.”
Historic Detroit Library “In March 1910, after some surprising opposition, the Common Council voted to accept an offer from steel magnate Andrew Carnegie to provide money to go toward improving the Detroit library system. Following two years of court cases and legal mumbo jumbo, the city finally got the go-ahead to start issuing bonds and moved ahead with building a replacement for the structure downtown, a building that was still only 35 years old.”
On May 21, 1961, my grandparents, Fannie and Mershell Graham, lined up their guests for the ritual photographs in their Eastside Detroit backyard. These are streaky polaroids. One of the first things I noticed about the lower photograph is the uncut grass. I don’t remember ever seeing it like that.
Verso: “Our backyard 9-21-1961 (right to left) John Wesley, John Bishops son, Ernest and Shell”
In the photo above (from left to right), my grandfather Mershell stands on the left. Ernest and John Bishop’s son are in the middle and my grandmother’s first cousin, John Wesley Allen is on the far right. I don’t know who Ernest, John Bishop or his son were and I don’t have enough information to look into the matter right now. John Wesley was visiting from Chicago with his wife, Bobbie, who appears in the women’s line below.
Verso: “Bobbie, Bluetta, Mrs Bishop, Daisy, Fan, Alice, Abbie. Taken by John Wesley Allen in our back yard 9-21-61. Daisy passed 11-24-61. Her last picture.”
We start this picture with my 2x great Aunt, Abbie Allen Brown on the left end. Abbie was aunt to my grandmother and her sisters and to John Wesley Allen in the other photo. Next to Abbie is my grandmother’s youngest sister, Alice Turner; then my grandmother Fannie Turner Graham; sister Daisy Turner. Next in line are two women I don’t know. I’m not sure the one second from the right is named Bluetta but that’s what it looked like to me. On the far right is John Wesley Allen’s wife, Bobbie Conyer Allen.
All of my direct family members in these photos were born in Alabama. Bobbie was born in Sumter county Georgia. Their ages range in age from Alice, who was 53 up to Aunt Abbie, who was 85. Daisy died unexpectedly from an aneurysm on November 11 of that same year. This was her last picture. After that Alice moved in with my grandparents and Aunt Abbie.
Who are they? Probably include Hugh Cleage, Paul Payne, Louis Cleage and ? The original is not clear enough for me to really make them out.
Entry from Henry Cleage’s diary, 1936.
January 13 Haliver Greene died this morning -spinal meningitis. Didn’t get up early to study History, however there was no class – lecture tomorrow so I won’t slide, tonight. Toddy bought back two books about lives of Dictators (putrid!!) only 25 cents a piece though – awfully windy out today-not so cold thought – like March. I would like to have been in the country, wrapped up good, walking into the wind at the Meadows, down the road towards the sand pile or over the hill to the creek – zest, spice, life, health, clear eye, firm step and all that sort of thing.
Route from Capac to Detroit.
The photograph was taken at “The Meadows” near Capac, St Clair County, Michigan around 1939, several months after the journal entry was written.
My Aunt Gladys remembers that her father Dr. Albert B. Cleage Sr and a bunch of fellow doctors bought it. It was to be a place where everyone could get away and the kids could meet and play… big house on the property with a porch that wrapped around 2/3 of the house… dances on the porches… near Capac Michigan… they sold it later. She kind of remembers parties on the porch… a getaway other than the Boule or Idlewild … her brothers and their friends spending a couple weeks at the meadows during the summer and brother Louis packing the provisions.
The photograph of three of my grandfather Mershell C. Graham’s friends was perfect for today’s Sepia Saturday prompt. To read about their lives, click this link – The Migration Part 3 – Those Left Behind. It turned out that some of them also left Montgomery, AL and moved north.
Lowndes Adams, Rufus Taylor and Lewis Gilmer & Lowndes little niece, Edoline.
Looking south on Grand River Ave in Detroit toward Downtown. About 1940.
When I saw the prompt for this weeks Sepia Saturday, I knew that I wanted to use this picture if I hadn’t already used it. It comes from my Cleage photo collection and my father or one of his brothers took it around 1939 – 1940, judging by the cars. After posting it, I decided to look and see what was going on with my Cleages around then. There was an article that mentioned my Grandfather, Dr. Albert B. Cleage Sr. speaking at a meeting at New Light Baptist Church. This was part of a larger column in the Chicago Defender devoted to Detroit happenings.
Ethel Waters was performing in “Mamba’s Daughters”. During this same time my cousin, Sylvia Vincent played the part of one of Mamba’s daughters at a young age, she was 8. While I was looking for a picture of Ethel Waters, I noticed that the author, Dubose Haywood had written the book and also written “Porgy and Bess” and, surprising to me, one of my favorite books of all times, “The Country Bunny” who is choosen over all the big, rich fast bunnies to be one of the Easter Bunnies and she has trained her 21 little bunnies to take care of the house in her absence and does a stellar job of being brave and steadfast and true to the end.
Marian Anderson was singing in the Masonic Temple, which was just a few blocks up Temple from the corner in the photograph. This was the year that the Daughter’s of the American Revolution refused to let her sing to an integrated audience in Constitution Hall and so she ended up preforming on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial for 75,000 people and to untold millions via radio.
Child prodigy, pianest Phillippa Shuyler was to preform to a thousand children at Bethel A.M.E. church. There was a lot going on in Detroit at the end of 1939 and I never would have noticed if I hadn’t been looking for something to relate to the photograph of Grand River Avenue and Temple. The heading is a photo from Google Maps of that corner as it looks today.
A Central Congregational Church Youth Fellowship dance held in the basement of the parsonage at 2254 Chicago Blvd, Detroit. You can see the jukebox there, right under the clock. I was too young at the time to go to Youth Fellowship, but at other times my sister and I went into the big, empty room with the pictures of the hunt on the wall as we roamed around the huge house. Those Youth Fellowship members looked so grown t0 10 year old me. Now they look so, so young. Frozen in time. Dancing to the jukebox.
