These are friends of my grandfather, MC Graham (Poppy). I used this photograph before but never as the featured photo. I thought the bowler hat theme was perfect for this. I don’t know who they are. The photograph was probably taken between 1917 in Montgomery before my grandfather married or 1919 in Detroit. Unfortunately it’s undated and unidentified. I am going by the clothes my grandfather wore that day and in other photos that are dated.
My grandfather and unidentified friend.
This photo is un-photoshopped. I couldn’t get the woman’s face right so I just included it as is. You can see more of the coat in this one. We are left to guess at the dress underneath.
We used this to heat our small house in Simpson County, Mississippi. We used a pickup or two of wood for the entire winter. Sometimes I cooked on it if the bottled gas ran out. It was also great for drying diapers hung on lines across the room.
For those who haven’t used a wood burning stove like the Atlanta Stove Works we used, here is a diagram of safety measures. When we first started, my husband didn’t realize why the stove was set out so far from the wall and moved it closer. Luckily we just ended up with a scorched piece of paneling and not a house fire.
Wood/coal burning furnace we used in Idlewild, Michigan.
This was not a very efficient furnace. It took enormous amounts of wood. My husband spent much time cutting, hauling and splitting wood all winter long. Because he worked long hours from spring through fall it wasn’t possible to get all the wood needed during the snow free months. Luckily we lived in the Manistee National forest and there was plenty of wood around. A few times we burned coal. It burned hot but it was so dirty. Soot everywhere. Up and down the stairs all winter long to keep the fire going.
A few weeks worth of wood.
Combination wood and electric stove on the deck on it’s way to the garage.
Furnace we heated with on Willis Mill.
The cook stove we used for several years in the Idlewild Lake house was a combination of wood burning on one side and electric on the other. The only photo in my collection and the one above. The stove was on it’s way from the kitchen to the garage after the insurance inspector said it didn’t meet guidelines for safe use.
When we moved to the house on Water Mill Lake we had a wood furnace like this one. It was very efficient and could burn one load almost all day. That meant a bit less wood (by now we also had a wood splitter) and a few less steps up and down the stairs to keep it going. Wonderful!
Stove we now use to supplement the furnace and heat the house.
When we moved to the house we now live in in Atlanta, Ga we found this stove already in place. The house is passive solar and has a berm against the north wall and a wall of windows on the south side. We burn wood to take the chill off in the winter if there is no sun out. If the sun is out it heats all by itself. We also have an gas furnace we use only rarely when we don’t feel like building the fire. We are back to a couple of pick up loads a winter and with all the trees that topple over in Atlanta we have no lack of wood available. If only we’d brought the wood splitter.
Jim adding wood to the heater at the end of the solarium. Maybe one day we will change it for one that will let us see the flames dancing.
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.
In 1968 I was a senior art student at Wayne State University in Detroit. Don’t remember why I did this drawing combining a skeleton and a coat of armor from the Detroit Institute of Art. The other two sketches are of a student posing with the skeleton.
I was 16 and my mother was 39 in this photograph. We were getting ready to go bike down Old Plank Road. I was bare footed. We used to bike past the neighbors on the hill and down to a pond that was small and weedy. Sometimes we skated there in the winter. The neighbors had two big dogs that were often outside and we would peddle fast to get past before the dogs got to the road. We’d take enough time riding to the pond and looking at the water for them to go back up and then we’d repeat the ride back to the house. The dogs never got to us.
Barefoot biking.
I got my first bike on my 8th birthday. It was a basic, blue bike. I didn’t know how to ride and it took me so long to learn that my mother finally threatened to give the bike to my cousin Barbara if I didn’t learn how to ride. I don’t remember anybody holding the bike and running with me. I do remember practicing in the driveway of the house on Chicago until I learned to ride. At that point I only rode around the block.
When I was older, I remember going bike riding all around the neighborhood with my cousins, Dee Dee and Barbara. We rode in the street, which I wasn’t supposed to do. My sister and I used to go bike riding too but we usually had a destination – the library or my grandmother’s house. I lost that bike when I left it unchained outside of a store on W. Grand Blvd. We were on the way home from the Main Library. Later it was replaced by a three speed bike. I had that one up at Old Plank until we sold the place and then I had it in the Detroit. It too was stolen when my husband left it unchained on a porch one night.
When we lived in Idlewild, from 1986 to 2007, I used to ride my Uncle Hugh’s old bike. It had a bigger than average seat which made it more comfortable for me to ride, however it was old and had been through a lot and the tires were sort of crooked. I enjoyed riding it the 4 miles around the lake and for one memorable 5 mile ride into town with my daughter, Ife. She was going to work so she had 6 hours between her rides. I had to turn around and ride 5 miles back. If the streets around my house here were flat and I didn’t see rottweilers trotting down the street alone, I would get a bike and ride now. I know I am not going to take a bike to a park to ride.
Tulani pole vaulting for Indiana State University.
My daughter Tulani pole valuting. She was one of the first to take it up when the event was added to college women’s track in 1996 as an exhibition event. In 1997 NCAA recognized and scored women’s pole vault as a regular meet event. She competed as a part of Central Michigan University’s Track team where she held the school record and was ranked in the top three Divsion I women vaulters in the state of Michigan. Tulani also pole valuted as a member of the Indiana State track team where this picture was taken.
I have posted this photograph before as part of my discovery of the numbers on photographs as a means of sorting and dating them. My father’s cousin, Theodore Page, is ready at the bat while my father, “Toddy” seems oblivious to the fact that he could have his head knocked off when Theodore goes to hit the ball. The photograph was taken in the summer of 1922, probably at Belle Isle, an island park in Detroit. The day was an outing for the extended Cleage family.
My uncle Henry loved baseball and often described the game in terms that made it seem like a work of art or a piece of music. My mother’s mother used to listen to games on the radio. I never liked playing the game – I could not hit the ball. I didn’t like watching it, compared to basketball, baseball games seem so long and slow moving.
Another photograph from the same outing. Starting from the left, are two headless women and I don’t know who they are. The little girl is my Aunt Barbara, next to her is my Uncle Hugh, Uncle Louis, Uncle Henry, Theodore Page (who looks like he has a double), my uncle Henry’s daughter, Ruth, who is holding the same ball the catcher is holding in the action shot. Behind them are, an unknown man, my great grandmother Celia Rice Cleage Sherman, her son Jacob, my father Albert “Toddy”, three people I don’t know then my grandfather Albert B. Cleage Sr. In the background are some other people. I don’t know who they are.
In 1973 my sister, Pearl, worked with the television program “Good Morning Atlanta”. One day Susan and Big Bird, from Sesame Street, appeared on the show. There was an audience drawn from a local elementary school. My oldest daughter, Jilo, was 2.5 years old. Pearl invited her to come on the show too. She seems to enjoy sitting on Susan’s lap but be a bit skeptical of Big Bird.
Jilo sitting on Susan’s lap.
Jilo looking at Big Bird. His head seems to be tucked down.
Entry from Jilo’s Baby Book.
“Jilo meets Big Bird, Susan, Gordon on Pearl’s show. She sang with them and will be on the show October 19, 1973. Went right up to Susan just like old friends. Received a record, autographed. Even Ife was quiet during the taping.”
Ife was about 7 months old. So, Jilo did get a momento. After I read this I remembered how we played that record over and over and over, for a long time.
For more Sepia Saturday offerings, CLICK! The theme for this week was “Two Views of the Health Fairy”.
Marilyn making a trunk being held by our grandfather, Poppy.
When I was growing up my sister, my cousins and I always made a yearly trip to the Detroit zoo with our mothers and grandfather, Poppy. My youngest cousin Marilyn was impressed by the elephants trunk this year and went around making her arm into a trunk afterwards.
Marilyn making a trunk. Her sister Barbara and me back there in the background.
