Category Archives: sepia saturday

Old Plank Road in Shadow – 1962 – Sepia Saturday #80

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Cousin Warren, Sister Pearl, Me and little cousin Blair

This photo was taken by my uncle Henry in 1962 at an old house we had in the country.  It was between Wixom and Milford Michigan and about 40 minutes or less from Detroit.  We had the old farm house and two acres, not including the impressive barn in the background. Maybe we were playing a trucated version of baseball. My cousin Warren seems to be coming in to touch base?  I seem to be hysterical.  Was small Blair in the game?

My Sepia Saturday tie in this week is not through the designated photo but through a fellow Sepia Saturday contributor who I got into a discussion with about racism in the USA today and in the past and somehow it came up that I have Canadian cousins and that one of them played football for the Eskimos until a recent achilles tendon injury.  TickleBear turned out to be a big football fan and when I mentioned my cousin and said he was now playing for the BC Lions and that his name was Kamau Peterson, he (Ticklebear) was quite thrilled.  I must admit that I’m not a sports fan of any kind and although I’ve kept up with my cousin’s growing family I have not really paid much attention to his football career. I had to go check his fb page and go to links to catch up. I knew he was doing well at it because that’s what we do, do well 😉 But I didn’t know the details.  Here is a photo of my well known Canadian Football playing cousin, Kamau Peterson.  He also has an awesome full back tattoo which you can see in progress here.  You can see other Sepia Saturday offerings here.

Who Knew? Happy Father’s Day Jim!

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A father’s day card for my husband.  Children across the bottom, grandchildren down the side.  Photographs and other items from our early years, 1966 to 1970. Including, the Detroit riot 12th and Atkinson, Jim in the Coast guard, Revolution Begins in the Mind poster from the Black Conscience, friends, some of my art work and a drawing of a man and child in a leisure suit by Jim, a brochure from the black Conscience Library. Jim with the red checked shirt.  Me leaning forward with the sleeveless shirt and afro.

For more Sepia Saturday posts click HERE.

Poppy Was Cool – 1916

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My sister recently found a stash of old family photos that she had forgotten she had.  She was nice enough to bring them over to me to add to the collection.  Among those photographs were these of my maternal grandfather, Mershell C. Graham called Poppy by us.  When these photos were made, he was Shell and apparently quite dapper.

In the first picture we see him perched on a fence with a tower in the background.  It looks sort of like a  bell tower.

In the next photo MC seems to be holding an umbrella and wearing tails.  On the other hand it looks like it’s pretty big for an umbrella. In the back is a wooden fence, but not the same one as in the tower photo. There are several people walking up and down the street too.

In the third photo my grandfather is swinging in the woods.  In the background there is something that could be a house or other building.

These photos were  around 1916 in Montgomery, Alabama. I think.

The last photo I include because they are such a cool looking couple. I know nothing beyond they were my grandfather’s friends.

For other Sepia Saturday entries with towers in them, click HERE.  Other posts about my MC Graham:  The Proposal,  The Proposal Accepted, Poem for Poppy,  Mershell’s Notebook and Poppy Could Fix Anything.

Trains – My Grandparents Mystery Tour

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I don’t know where my grandparents were going in these photographs from the 1950s.  They were traveling with a group.   I know they started in Detroit and ended up back in Detroit. In between they seem to have gone to the sea shore, the far west and possibly places in between.  For other train related (or not) posts, click Sepia Saturday.

My grandmother is on the far right of the first photo.

My grandmother Pearl Reed Cleage in the middle, next to her my dapper grandfather.

At a band shell.

Stage coach.

My grandmother after vanquishing the bull in the ring. Or....?

On a battery somewhere? Grandparents at right.

My grandparents on each end. Back on the train.

A boy and his dog – Hugh Cleage

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Hugh Cleage and dog

Obituary
September 28, 2005
BY CHRIS KUCHARSKI
FREE PRESS SPECIAL WRITER

Hugh C. Cleage

Printer, political activist

Former Detroit political activist Hugh C. Cleage, 87, died Thursday after a long battle with bladder cancer at his home in Anderson, S.C., where he had spent the last few years supervising the ranch and riding stables of his nephew, Dr. Ernest Martin.

One of the organizers of the Black Slate and a candidate for Michigan state representative in the 1964, he was a member of one of Detroit’s most politically influential families, which included his brother, the late Rev. Albert Cleage Jr., founder of the Shrine of the Black Madonna.

He was born in Detroit, graduated from Northwestern High School in 1936 and later earned his bachelor’s degree in agriculture from Michigan State University. As conscientious objectors to World War II, he and his brother Henry chose farming as an alternative to military service.

In the early 1960s, he became co-owner of the Illustrated News, which he ran with his brothers and other citizens. The paper was distributed free to black churches.

The Black Slate, which evolved from that publication, sought to educate Detroit’s black voters and urged them to support black candidates.

As a member of the Freedom Now Party, Mr. Cleage ran an unsuccessful campaign for state representative in the 23rd District. It was said to be the first all-black political party.

Mr. Cleage retired to Anderson in the early 1990s.

He is survived by sisters Barbara Martin, Gladys Evans and Anna Shreve, and many nieces and nephews.

A private memorial will be held Friday in South Carolina, followed by a public service at 3 p.m. Sunday at the Shrine of the Black Madonna, 7625 Linwood, Detroit. Memorial contributions may be made to the Salvation Army, 16130 Northland Drive, Southfield 48075.

For more posts about Hugh click Skating Champions,  Elections Past,   Hugh with Friends,

For more sepia saturday offerings click here.

Uncle Louis Plays the Organ

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Louis playing the organ in the house on Atkinson while Hugh reads.

 In keeping with today’s Sepia Saturday theme, I offer my uncle, Dr. Louis Cleage playing an organ.  Louis had many talents and interests.  He spoke fluent Spanish and visited Mexico frequently.  He drove the fastest speed boat on Lake Idlewild in his day.  He had a short wave radio in the basement and as WAFM talked to the world.  He also was wrote “Smoke Rings” for the Illustrated News during the early 1960s.  He had a wicked sense of humor and a laugh unlike any other I have heard.  And I’m sure I’m leaving out half of it.

Louis began practicing medicine with his father at the Cleage Clinic on Lovett in the 1940s and continued practicing there until 1974. He closed the doors and walked away after being held up numerous times for prescription drugs.

Louis gives a polio shot to Harold Keneau. 1956.
Cleage Clinic as it looks today.

This organ also featured in a popular Sepia Saturday offering of my mother “My Mother – 1952“.

Airplanes in the Album – About 1921

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This week’s Sepia Saturday features an old airplane.  I have two photographs of a small, old plane in my Cleage collection.  Unfortunately there is nothing written on the back of either photo and I can’t recognize anybody in the photo for sure, although the baby in the top photo couldbe my Aunt Barbara.     I don’t know where the photo was taken or when.  Here is a photograph of my family standing in a field in Detroit, 1920.

My grandfather Albert Cleage holding daughter Barbara. Next to him my father, Albert Jr. In front of him, Henry.  In front of all Louis and Hugh.  Standing alone to the right is my great grandmother, Celia Rice Cleage Sherman.  And I just noticed the background looks similar…car, trees, etc.

For more fabulous photos of old airplanes and other fascinating Sepia Saturday subjects click here.

Shell and Fan 1958 and 1941 Sepia Saturday #73

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“Shell and Fan under our apple tree
6638 Theodore St. summertime 1958″

Their backyard was full of flowers, as you can see, with a bird bath in the middle.  My grandfather is holding an apple off of  the apple tree just off camera to the right.  My grandmother made wonderful applesauce with those apples and lots of cinnamon.  The vegetable garden was behind the flowers.  They were married on June 11, 1919 in Montgomery Alabama and came directly to Detroit.  Both were 70 years old in this photo and had been married for 39 years.

This is one of my favorite photographs of the two of them together.  I like the peeling and the white out and even the scotch tape.  This one was taken on the side of their house.  If we could look in the basement window on the left, we would see my grandfather’s shop which smelled of machine oil and wood and basement and faintly of the pine-sol he sprinkled around. “Lizzie”, the model T Ford is behind them.  It was taken 2 February 1941.  I bet it was Sunday.

To read my grandfather’s proposal letter to my grandmother, click here.  For other Sepia Saturday photographs of older couples and who knows what else this week, click here.

Time Passages

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Uri – Me – Phil – Miriam – Me – Miriam – Miriam – Miriam
Jilo, Tyra- Shirley, Jim, Ife, Jilo & Ife – Me, Jim, Ife, Jilo, Ife – Jim, Ife, Jilo, Tyra

While looking through a box of photographs the other day, I came across some negatives from the 1970s.

The first strip was taken in 1970, when I was a revolutionary librarian at the Black Conscience Library in Detroit.  I was pregnant with my first daughter, Jilo.  Uri grew up to be an engineer.  Phil later confessed to being a snitch, Miriam is Tyra’s mother.  I was 23.

The second strip was made in 1974 in Atlanta.  Shirley was visiting from Detroit, as was Tyra.  Jim, my husband, was a printer with the Atlanta Voice.  I was at home full time.  Ife, my second daughter, was about to turn one year old.  Jilo was 3.  Tyra was 2.  I was 26.

Although this is not a clock, which was the theme for this weeks Sepia Saturday, it does reflect time.  You can see more timely entries here.

Easter Memories

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Henry, Toddy, Albert Sr & little Gladys

Henry’s back, Hugh looking out of car.

Kris ((me) and my sister, Pearl at our Cleage grandparents house with our “mashies” and Easter baskets. 1953

Memories of Easter – dying eggs in my Graham grandparent’s basement on Easter Saturday with my sister and cousins.  Easter baskets with jelly beans and chocolate eggs and one big chocolate Easter bunny.  Tiny fuzzy chicks.    The year someone gave us 4 or 5 real chicks that died one by one in their box in the basement.  Sugar eggs decorated with wavy blue, pink and yellow icing and a little scene inside.  Reading the book “The Country Bunny and the Little Gold Shoes”, new clothes, going to church. Going by the Grandmother Cleage’s after church.  What I don’t remember is gathering for a big Easter meal like we did for Thanksgiving and Christmas.  I wonder why?

I have some Easter hats here and although you can’t see them clearly, my sister and I are holding some stuffed bunnies.  To see other Easter or bunny Sepia Saturday offerings click here.