I don’t remember hearing memories of childhood Halloween celebrations from my parents. I do have a few memories of my own. When I was about 7 years old and we lived in the parsonage at 2254 Chicago Blvd in Detroit, the Youth Fellowship met in the basement. They were having a Halloween party. I remember my sister and I watching them come in all dressed in various costumes. I don’t know if it was the same year as this photograph was taken or not.
From the 1956 Youth Fellowship Yearbook
That same year we dressed up and went over to our cousin’s house to help distribute candy to the trick-or-treaters. I remember wearing my Aunt Mary Vee’s skirt and dressing as a Gypsy. We never were allowed to go trick-or-treating, but enjoyed passing out the candy. When we were highschool age, we would sometimes leave town for the day to avoid the whole holiday and passing out candy by not being home. I have no pictures of us in any Halloween costumes.
When my own children were old enough to know Halloween was happening, we did not live in the city. I remember my very young daughter’s going with the older neighbors up and down our short block trick-or-treating in Mt. Pleasant, SC. It was unseasonably cold and they had to wear winter coats over their homemade costumes.
We moved to Mississippi the next week, where we lived out in the country and there wasn’t any trick-or-treating, instead there would be an evening carnival at the school. The students would dress up and there would be booths with games and treats. In Excelsior Springs, MO I don’t remember my kids going trick-or-treating but two had paper routes and their customers gave them so much candy! Way, way more than anyone needed in a year.
The next move was to Idlewild, MI, in the middle of the Manistee National Forest. Some years there was a school carnival. Other years the kids went to town and trick or treated the 2 block business area. A couple of years my Aunt Gladys and Henry had a get together with cider and doughnuts for Halloween. The year when I was librarian at the Yates Township library we had a community party with bobbing for apples, a fishing booth and refreshments. Here is an article about it from the Ruff Draft, our family newsletter.
My father considered putting on plays a good project for the church youth groups. I remember one about a rummage sale that was put on in the basement of the parsonage on Chicago Blvd in the 1950s. Unfortunately, I can’t find any photographs. I remember a play he tried to put on with the Youth Fellowship in the 1960s where the actors just couldn’t get into the spirit of the play and it was canceled. Again, no photos.
My mother took acting classes at the local YWCA when she was a child and told me she learned how to fall down dramatically without hurting herself and that and her friend used to try and shock people sometimes when they were walking down the street by falling out. No photos.
But, when we lived in Excelsior Springs, MO in 1983 – 1985, my oldest daughters participated in several of the plays put on by the Community Theater. I remember Finian’s Rainbow and Peter Pan. There were lots of rehearsals in the evening and that we lived close enough to the practice place that they could walk downtown and back. This was good because we only had one car and it was often with my husband. We all missed the theater when we moved.
Jilo was in the production Excelsior Springs 1984 production of “Finian’s Rainbow”.
Jilo as Princess Tiger Lilly and Ife as a lost boy, in costume. The other’s are just in the photo.
Jilo and Ife ready for “Peter Pan.” Excelsior Springs 1984.
Both of my grandfathers worked on the Great Lakes steam ships. My maternal grandfather, Mershell Graham, worked as a steward for the Detroit & Cleveland Navigation Company when he first came to Detroit in 1917. He had previously worked in the dining cars of passenger trains. After several years he got a job at Ford Motor Co. where he remained until his retirement 30 years later.
My paternal grandfather, Albert B. Cleage, Sr, worked for the same company in 1909. He was a medical student in Indiana and earned money during the summer by working on the Eastern States cruise ship as a waiter. The excerpts in this post are from his letters.
June 19 1909 I left Indianapolis last night at 7:25. Stayed all night in Hamilton Ohio. Am now in Toledo at 10 AM. Will leave for Detroit 2: 15.
June 20, 1909 Arrived in Detroit yesterday at 4:00 PM, and left for Buffalo via “Eastern States” Star. on which I am at work. Was lucky. Am well, found two old school friends on same boat!
June 20, 1909 I am sitting in an old ware-house door on the wharf at Buffalo, – tell me there isn’t an element of romance in my location to say the least. I will be in Detroit again tomorrow and will see many of the boys whom I know there. You can imagine how worn out I am – just stopped traveling this morning, and if the boat ever comes into dock again I shall go immediately to bed. I went uptown to get some things and it went up the Lake and left me, but it will return soon.
Albert B. Cleage
June 24, 1909 Lawrence has come and we are working together.
June 27, 1909 (On board the Steamer “Eastern States” – Lake Erie) This is Sabbath night about 10:00 o’clock and we are about six hours ride out of Detroit and about twelve miles from land in the shortest direction. Surroundings are such as to impress one with his insignificance and emphasize the fact that he is indeed kept by Jehovah’s care. I shall first endeavor to acquaint you with the boat on which I am working. It’s name is “The Eastern States” and runs from Detroit to Buffalo. We leave Detroit one day at 5 PM and arrive in Buffalo the next morning at 8 o’clock, staying in
Buffalo all day we leave again for Detroit in the Evening at 5 PM you see we spend one day in Detroit and one in Buffalo. Today we were in Detroit and would it interest you to know how I spent it? Well, if it will interest you; after breakfast was over about 9 am, I went down to our “quarters” (I suppose you have only a faint conception of what that word means – I describe it later.) and slept until 11:30 – served lunch, after which Aldridge and I walked up town for about 2 hours – smoked some cigars, came back to the boat and took a couple of hours more of sleep. So you see I am putting in plenty of time sleeping. This stuff I’m sure does not interest you and I will not bore you longer but as I promised to say something about our “quarters”
It is one large room about 35 x 40 ft. in which are 32 beds – just think of it!! Those beds or better bunks are arranged in tiers of three and I at the present time am sitting on my bed (the top one) and there are two other fellows below me. What ventilation we get comes through six small port holes the diameters of which are about 6 in.
The fellows are a cosmopolitan aggregation, men from everywhere and at any time you can hear arguments and discussions on all subjects – Sensible and nonsensible. There are several students on board – boys from Howard University, Wilberforce University, Oberlin University, Michigan, and Indiana and out of them there are some very fine fellows to know… I could talk all night about the desirable and the non-desirable features of my Steamboat experience.
This isn’t the dining room of the Eastern States but the City of Detroit was a sister ship so it was probably similar.
July 3, 1909 (Enroute to Buffalo, Steamer Eastern States) Yesterday while Lewis and I were walking up the street in Buffalo, whom did we see standing on the corner (as if lost) but Miss Berry of Indianapolis, her brother and his wife and a Miss Stuart an Indianapolis teacher. Well to be sure we were surprised and they too seemed agreeably so. We spent the day with them taking in the zoo and other points of interest. They visited our boat and we showed them through it. That was experience number one.
Secondly – our boat was in a storm last night I awoke last night amid great excitement in our quarters and found that it was only possible for me to lie in bed with quite a great deal of effort. The old boat was being mightily tossed and driven and the angry waves were rising a high as your house or higher. We were sometimes on top of them and again between them at all times with a feeling that we would every minute be swallowed up by them. Great excitement prevailed. Most of the waiters got up and put on life preservers thinking they would have need of them. I neither was afraid or sick. Nothing serious happened and we arrived in Detroit only a few hours late this morning.
We are tonight taking over to Buffal0 a 4th of July Excursion. A large crowd is aboard. A great number of extra waiters are aboard and an extra amount of noise is present and unfavorable to letter writing accept the effort…
After WW2, automobile travel replaced steamer travel and gradually the ships were retired, burned and scrapped. Here is a timeline for the Eastern States from the link above.
Laid down as EMPIRE STATE.
1902, Jan Launched Wyandotte, MI.
1909 Owned Detroit & Cleveland Navigation Co, Detroit, MI.
1930 Owned Detroit & Cleveland Navigation Co., Detroit.
1950 Laid up, Detroit.
1956, Jun 21 Owned Lake Shore Steel Co & Siegal Iron & Metal Co, Detroit.
My aunt Anna Cecelia was born January 29, 1925 in Detroit, Michigan. She is the little ghost baby being held by her mother, my grandmother Pearl Reed Cleage.
J.L.C. Mama and nana peela
Barbbara & Gladys J.L.C.
My aunt Gladys looks like she is either returning or leaving the scene via time travel.
Mr. Louis Cleage Age 12, – 1925
Mr. Louis Cleage, age 12 wrote names on the backs of the photos.
Here is a family photograph from about 20 years later. From L to right we have Barbara (who we can actually see.) Henry, Anna, mother Pearl and in the front is Gladys.
The room is cold.
The bed hard with
too few quilts.
More fumes than heat
come from the small
gas heater in the fireplace.
All around, the empty,
crumbling campus.
Inside the spirits swirl
in the cold air.
Several years ago my husband and I attended a conference in Selma Alabama by the Black Belt African American Genealogical & Historical Society. We stayed with our friend, Donald Stone on the campus of the Snow Hill Institute. It was once a thriving and bustling school but since the early 1970s when it was closed due to school integration, it’s been pretty much deserted. Stone, who is a descendent of the founder lives there. We stayed in the house next to the one he was in. It was so sad to see what was once an important educational institution, empty. Below is a short interview with Donald Stone. Above is a poem I wrote during the August Postcard Poetry month about the experience of spending the night there.
For more information about Snow Hill Normal and Industrial School:
Rev. Albert B. Cleage sitting on the steps of St. John’s Congregational Church around 1948.
Today is the International Day of Peace. My post includes a petition, “A Plea for Peace and for American Democracy” signed by my father, Rev. Albert B. Cleage (later known as Jaramogi Abebe Agyeman) in 1948. It was printed in The Springfield Union newspaper of Springfield Mass, April 1, 1948 edition.
I have included several pages from a document prepared for the USA Senate titled Report on The Communist “Peace” Offensive. This includes a list of people who signed the petition in Massachusetts and a few other states. This happened as the anti-communist era got underway, leading directly into the McCarthy era. You can read more about it here McCarthy Era. As always, click on any picture to enlarge it.
A song written and sung by Victor Jara ends this post. Víctor Jara was a Chilean teacher, theatre director, poet, singer-songwriter and political activist. He was also a member of the Communist Party of Chile. When the USA supported coup against the elected government of Chile took place on September 11, 1973, Victor Jara was taken to the football stadium where his hands were cut off, his guitar smashed and after taunts to play his guitar now, they shot him to death. To read more, see this link Bruce Springsteen Honors Chilean Folk Hero in Santiago.
This is another letter that my father wrote home to Detroit from Los Angeles when he was studying film in 1944. The photograph of my mother putting a hem in her skirt is also from August, 1944. I’m not sure if this picture was enclosed with this letter.
Putting a hem in a skirt. Aug 1944 in Sunshiny living. Los Angeles
231 South Hobart Blvd. #4 Los Angeles, 7, California August 18, 1944
Hi Folks:
Its Friday afternoon and I just got home from school, and I thought I’d drop you-all a note on the state of the nation. My “little” wife is still working. She gets off about five-thirty and comes home by way of the grocery store. Everything is about the same as usual. We’re still at large (out of the poor-house)…but I’ll have to find something to do pretty quick if we’re planning to stay that-a-way! I’m “dickering” with the Los Angeles Church Federation for a “position”. The “boss-Man” is out of town but I’ve filed an application and we’ll discuss the matter further when he gets back in September. It would be a pretty-good job if I can get it…sort of Negro field-worker for the Federation, co-ordinating the community work of the Negro churches… recruiting and training volunteers and organizing programs and clubs and groups and what-have-you. I’ve also applied to the Negro Community-Center, just-in-case.
On the way to school this morning a man picked me up in the safety-zone (big fine looking red-faced white man) in a Packard from here down town…and we got to bulling each other, and it turned out that he’s the Director of Audio-Visual Education for the Los Angeles Public Schools. Of course he was very happy to meet a real authority in the field…and invited me down to his office to see the experimental work the School System is doing in Moving-picture production. I’ll go down as soon as I can and see what them there “amateurs” are a trying to do.
School is going along fine…(no grades yet, of course!) Me and the Dean of the School of Religion are having a little long-distance controversy through his secretary. He thinks I ought to take half of my work in RELIGION…and I think I ought to take all (or almost all) in Cinema. He has an ace in the hole, however, in as much as I’m registered under the School of Religion and therefore pay only the special fees (Fellowships in religion make up the difference) …However, I’m not going to take half of my work in religion in as much as the religion courses will not contribute to what I’m trying to do!
SPECIAL NOTE TO LOUIS: If he makes me pay up the REGULAR REGISTRATION FEES I’ll have to wire you for a small loan of $100.00 or so until I can work long enough to pay it back. I think we can “arrange the difference of opinion” without such a drastic step… but with the good-white-folks you can never tell…especially preachers. My wife will divorce me if I have to borrow…but I aint no sentimentalist myself…and so I’m a warnin’ you.
How’s the farm going? How’s Mama getting along? I hear that “Racial-tension” in Detroit is a thing of the past! We’re getting ready to have a riot here…The FEPC has ordered the Street Railways to hire and upgrade Negroes immediately! Maybe I can get a “Riot-Movie”.
Here are some “snaps”- Did you get the ones we sent from San Francisco – I don’t think you ever mentioned them.
Kris, Doris and Pearl. Lake Idlewild, Michigan. 1956.
The summer of 1956, my mother would sometimes row over to the “island”, which was downtown Idlewild, not a real island, although you did have to go over a bridge or a drainage pipe to get there. At that time, Idlewild was booming, a place for black people to go in segregated America and forget about all that for awhile. Big name acts preformed at the Flamingo Club and there was a skating rink in the club house. But when we rowed over in the morning, we were going to get the paper or milk or something else mundane.
Sometimes my sister Pearl and I would take our savings and shop at Lee-Jon’s or at Ma Riddle’s Log Cabin. At Lee-John’s we bought tiny bears with movable limbs, about 3 inches tall. At Ma Riddle’s, we mainly looked while she tried to sell us salt and pepper
Idlewild is located at the red A
shakers that looked like picnic tables. Her store was a real log cabin. I don’t remember going inside because it was so small that the front was a shutter she raised and lowered and you looked at the merchandise right there.
I wonder why we weren’t wearing life jackets in the photo above. We certainly couldn’t swim at the time. There were life jackets because I remember playing in the water and wearing them. The lake was 4 miles around and there were spots, my Uncle Henry used to say, where the bottom had never been found.
I’m reading the paper with my mother. 1962, Old Plank Road. Near Wixom, MI.
This is a small undated Polaroid snap shot. I dated it by looking at other photos from that year that were dated. It was probably taken in the summer or early fall. I was 16 and would be a high school sophomore in the fall of that year.
What were we reading about? I decided to look up what happened during 1962. It was an eventful year. Lot’s of above ground nuclear tests; countries in Africa and the West Indies gaining their freedom; Civil Rights demonstrations in Albany, GA; the Berlin wall; Thalidomide; the Cuban missile crisis and George Wallace winning the governorship of Alabama are a few stories we could have been reading.
In February of 2013 I did post about reading the newspaper on a Sunday morning Reading The Newspaper – 1962. Appears my mother and I did a lot of tandem newspaper reading.
Connie Stowers, my uncle Hugh Cleage and my mother Doris Graham Detroit, 1940.
My uncle Hugh is sitting on my mother’s parent’s couch being hugged by my mother and her best friend, Connie. I remember that ash tray. It was red. The couch was dark green and over it hung a tapestry with a garden scene that included… wait, here is a photograph that includes the bottom of the tapestry. I wonder where it came from and where it went.
My aunt Mary V, holding her grandson Frank with my grandfather Mershell Graham aka Poppy.
By 1966, we had the old couch at our house and my grandparents were using my great grandmother Jennie’s furniture. At the time I thought it was strange they changed to that hard wooden furniture but as my knees give out, I appreciate that it was higher, easier to sit down on and get up from. Plus there must have been a lot of memories for my grandmother. My mother sold it to an antique store after her parents died.
