Category Archives: sepia saturday

Unidentified Man With Car

Allen, sepia saturday
Unidentified man with car. I think 1940s.
My mother Doris Graham and friend Constance Stowers.

This unlabeled photograph was found in my Graham grandparent’s photographs. It shows a young man standing in front of my grandparent’s house by a car, which may be their car. The background house is the same one in the photograph of my mother and her friend.

Although I believed this to be Caruso Martin, my mother’s second cousin because I thought he looksed like little Caruso in the photo below. I just received an email from a Martin/Martino descendant who informs me that based on having met Caruso, who was his cousin, he does not think that this mystery man is him. So, back to being an unidentified man with a car again. Oh well, those unidentified photos are so frustrating and now I’m wondering if when I think I’ve finally identified them, I actually haven’t. It was nice to meet a cousin through my blog at any rate!

In 1940 Caruso was living with his mother, his stepfather and three step-brothers in Detroit. His mother was born in Alabama and had four years of high school. She did not work outside of the home. His stepfather was born in Italy and had had no schooling. He worked as a machine repairman at an auto manufacturer. His income during the previous year was $2,000.

All of the young people in the house had been born in the United States and gone through the 8th grade. The oldest son was 24 and married. He worked as a garage man at the City Water Co. He earned $1040. His wife did not work outside of the home. The second son was 21 and unemployed, and had been unemployed all year.

Caruso was 19 and worked as a linen folder in a linen supply company. He had worked 52 weeks during the past year and earned $1,000. His 19 year old step-brother worked at the same place and made $988 during the previous 23 weeks.

Annabelle and Caruso were listed as “Negro”. The Champine’s were listed as “white”. Annabelle McCall Champine, Caruso’s mother, was the person who gave the information to the census taker.

Annie Belle McCall Martin with youngest son Caruso in front. Her cousin, my grandmother Fannie Graham holding son Mershell. Two of Annie Belle’s daughters, my grandfather Mershell Graham. In front my aunt Mary V. Graham. Photo taken in Detroit about 1923.

Below are two sad stories about the Martin family in 1923, when the husband and father died of typhoid while on a musical family trip from Florida to their home in Lima, Ohio.


Statesville Record And Landmark
Statesville, North Carolina 16 Jul 1923, Mon  •  Page 1

MARTINOS ARE HAPPY AGAIN

Their Mother Returns From a Business Trip to Ohio- Children Were Jumpint to a Conclusion That She Had Deserted Sick Husband – Bible Classes Make Contribution.

The Martinos are happy again- as happy as a family can be when their father lies seriously ill. Their mother came back to them yesterday afternoon and Welfare Officer W. W. Holland and a group of representative Statesville women who heard her story today at his office are convinced that the children were jumping to a conclusion when they assumed she had deserted them and her sick husband for another man. “When I heard how well-bred the children were, I knew their mother was the right kind of woman,” remarked one of the group. “I wasn’t ready to believe the story about her.”

The trouble came about in this way, Mrs. Martino stated. Jeff her son by a former marriage, couldn’t get along with the Martino boys, sons of her husband by his first marriage. When they got into trouble, she could not side against her own son, she remarked; he was as much hers as the other children. Matters came to a head when her husband gave Jeff a whipping and put him outside to ride on a fender – they travel from place to place in their truck.

The only way out, she decided, was to take her son to her mother. This she did, pawning two of her rings in Salisbury to buy tickets to their home in LIma, O. She had no idea of going off with their manager, she said: and that she left Salisbury the same day she left her family, leaving him there. “He was nothing but a spendthrift,” she said; “I would have been ambitious – a mother of children – to have gone off with him, wouldn’t I?”

Letters have passed between her husband and herself since she went away. At Lima, where they are paying on a home, she planted her garden and wrote to her husband asking him to bring the children there, she said. She wanted to quit the road anyway, as it no longer agreed with her. Mrs. Martino gives the impression of being a thoroughly good woman and the children were more than glad to have her back again. The The other two children she took with her to Lima returned with her.

Yesterday morning the five children who were here played several sacred selections at the Men’s Bible class of the Broad Street Methodist church. Mr. Holland related their story. The members contributed #91 to a fund for their benefit. Contributions from another class brought up the total to $104. Their father remains seriously ill at the Davis Hospital with typhoid, though reported slightly better today.

Note: In 1923, Anna Belle’s mother, Mary Allen McCall lived in Detroit. Perhaps the photo taken above with my grandparents was taken during this trip to drop off her oldest son. The youngest three children are in the picture and they accompanied her.

_____________________


Statesville Record And Landmark
Statesville, North Carolina 23 Aug 1923, Thu  •  Page 1

Death Claims E. N. Martino

Father of Italian Children Emcamped at Court House Passes Away After Protacted Illness.

Mr. E. N.. Martino died died Monday at Davis Hospital, after a protracted illness. He was brought here some weeks since from Mooresville, where he had stopped with his family in their journey by truck from Florida to his home in LIma, Ohio. At one time he had rallied to treatment an his recovery was anticipated. He was 56 years old. The funeral service and interment were at Oakwood cemetery Tuesday at 4 o’clock with Rev. John W. Moore officiating.

Surviving are the widow and eight children, all but one here with her, encamped by their truck on the north side of the court house. They are Napier, Estill, Anna Maria, Eddie, Geneva, Thelma and Caruso, three years old. The oldest son is 1. Mrs. Martino plans to leave for for Lima, where they are paying on a home, next week.

_____________________

For more about the Martin family, including photos, click these links
Oh, Dry Those Tears! (1901)
The Midget Band
More About Annabell’s Family

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Barbara at Cleage Printers

Cleages, Detroit, Photographs, sepia saturday
Barbara Cleage Martin at Cleage Printers

I can’t see what Barbara is doing here as she gets the copy ready to photograph and print.

You can read more about Cleage Printers and my Aunt Barbara in these posts

Cleage Printers.
B is for Barbara Cleaage
Person of the Month – Barbara Pearl Cleage Martin
My Aunt Barbara Colorized
Celebrating my Aunt Barbara’s 90th Birthday
The Afram River and Freedom School 1964 including an article written by my Aunt Barbara, who was married to Mr. Smith at that time so signed the article as Barbara Smith. This was during the time of the photograph above was taken.

Sepia Saturday 606 : Office Worker – Click to see more Sepia Saturday posts

It has been a long time since I participated in Sepia Saturday. When I saw the prompt photo, I immediately thought of the photo I featured today.

Henry Cleage 1916 – 1996

Cleages, Photographs, sepia saturday
henry laugh sepia
Henry Cleage

Part 1

(The links will take you to posts I have written that give more details about his life.)

Henry Wadsworth Cleage was born March 22, 1916, six months after his family moved from Kalamazoo to Detroit, Michigan.  He was born at home on 1355 24th Street, the 3rd of the 7 children of Dr. Albert B. Cleage SR and his wife Pearl Reed Cleage. This was my first digression.  I went to look on Google Maps to see if the house was still there.  It wasn’t. There are mostly empty lots with a few houses scattered about. The house was located on the corner of 24th Street and Porter, a few blocks from the Detroit River And the Ambassador Bridge.

Between January and June of 1920, when Henry was 5 years old, the family moved 3 miles north to a large brick house on 6429 Scotten Ave.  My grandmother was pregnant with Barbara, her 5th child and first daughter, who was born in the new house. I remember my aunt Gladys telling me that all the girls were born in that house on Scotten.

Henry and his siblings attended Wingert Elementary school, a few blocks from the house. He built forts in the backyard with his brothers and neighborhood friends and told of riding his bike out Tireman to the country where they roasted potatoes in a campfire.  His father’s mother Celia Rice Cleage Sherman stayed with the family during that time.

He attended McMichael Junior High School and then Northwestern High School.  While at Northwestern he played in the school orchestra and the All City Orchestra, played school baseball and was on the 12-A dues committee.

After high school Henry attended Wayne University, getting his BA and then entered Law School at Wayne.   These posts talk about his life during those days Henry Cleage’s Journal 1936,  Follow up on Henry’s Diary.

Henry married Alice Stanton in 1941.  When WW2 started, Henry and his brother were conscientious objectors and moved to a farm in Avoca where they raised dairy cows and chickens.  Henry and Alice were divorced in 1943.

While on the farm, Henry wrote short stories and sent them out to various magazines of the day. None were published. I shared two of them earlier – Just Tell The Men – a short story by Henry Cleage and another short story Proof Positive. In 1947 Henry returned and completed Law School and began practicing in Detroit and Pontiac.

This ends part 1 of the life of Henry Cleage.

Note: You can find out more about Henry’s time as a conscientious objector in this post – Of Cows and Conscientious Objectors.

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Sepia Saturday 500

sepia saturday

It has been a while since I participated in Sepia Saturday. I seem to have already used photos that would go with the present prompts, in previous posts. However, when I saw that Sepia Saturday had been active for 500 weeks, I thought I would post some of the photos I shared in the past that matched the posts shown in the prompt collage at the bottom of this page. I got the idea after reading Peter’s blog.

Click to enlarge. My photos chosen to match the prompt below.

Subject and Photographer – My Father Takes My Photograph and appears in the mirror.
Groups of Students My father and his eighth grade graduating class.
Love and Marriage Gladys Helen Cleage and Eddie Warren Evans Wed.
The Missing Posts Warren Evans on a Tractor and Henry Cleage in court.
Looking Over The Fence – My grandmother Pearl Reed Cleage looking over the fence.
Hugh Fishing at the Meadows – My uncle Hugh Cleage catching big fish with a basic pole.
The Midget Band – My grandmother Fannie Turner Graham’s first cousin & her family band.
Siblings -My mother Doris and her sister Mary V and brother Howard at Belle Isle.

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Siblings

Detroit, Grahams, sepia saturday, ,
Howard, Mary Vee and Doris Graham 1930

This picture was taken at Belle Isle in 1930, which used to be a city park in the Detroit River and was free to all. It has since been changed to a state park and there is a fee for entry. Howard must have been almost one year old, he had been born the previous September. He seems to be wearing a gown. Mary Vee was ten and Doris was seven.

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Vote FREEDOM NOW!

Cleages, Detroit, sepia saturday
Henry Cleage outside of Cleage Printers 1963

I wish my interviewing skills had been better when I recorded this. Obvious things like, turn off the radio and go to a quiet room. I edited out as much of the extraneous noise as I could. Henry and I were sitting in the living room of my house in Idlewild, MI. You can hear the sounds of the kids getting dinner on the table and hollering at the dog in the background. In 1994 my youngest four were all at home and we were homeschooling. Henry lived about 4 miles away and often had dinner with us. In his statements, Henry couldn’t remember some names. When I posted the transcript of the interview years ago, my friend Paul Lee commented:  “Henry couldn’t recall the names of the “two brothers” who co-founded the FNP with “Afro-American” newspaper foreign correspondent William W. Worthy. They were Leftist attorney Conrad J. Lynn and Daniel Watts, publisher of New York’s militant “Liberator” magazine. As you know, Worthy and Watts attended the National Negro Grass Roots Leadership Conference in November 1963.”

Yesterday I came across these posters from 1963 and today I found the theme for this weeks Sepia Saturday was Posters. Although these are not on a wall, there were identical ones put up around Detroit during the time leading up to the election of 1964.

Ronald Latham

Older posts about the Freedom Now Party

The Freedom Now Party – William Worthy’s Speech

The Freedom Now Party – Convention

Transcript of Interview With Henry Cleage – Freedom Now Party Votes Stolen

____________________

And now a modern wall with posters not too far from my house. The colorful part is painted. The faces are printed on paper and glued on. To the left of my sister’s face, three artists were peeled off. The building is a former night spot what now stands empty in a mostly deserted strip mall.  I hope they plan to put the three missing artists back up. There were men in the back painting that wall and there are similar murals on the other walls.

A wall in Southwest Atlanta dedicated to local artists. My sister Pearl Cleage, a writer/playwrite is in the center.
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Baby’s First Photograph – Feb. 9, 1929

Grahams, Photographs, sepia saturday,

“Feb 4, 1929 – Dad snapped Baby and me through dining room sun window. Not very good – sorry as now he has whooping cough? Weather’s been too bad to take him out to have pictures made…”

Baby Howard and Mother Fannie in the window 1929.
1929 Doris and Mary V. and 1951 Barbara and Pearl
Dee Dee, Barbara, Poppy, Pearl and Kris – 1953 & Doris and Mary V. 1929

More about Howard: Howard Alexander Graham’s Death Certificate

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Family group

Grahams, Photographs, sepia saturday, Turner
Three Generations. Click to enlarge

From Left to right My grandmother, Fannie Mae Turner Graham, peeking over my great grandmother, Jennie Virginia Allen Turner’s, shoulder. My grandmother’s sister Daisy Turner. Behind and between Aunt Daisy and Aunt Alice Turner, is my aunt Mary Virginia Graham Elkins, although she was not yet an Elkins. At the end, behind Alice, is my mother, Doris Graham Cleage, although she was not yet a Cleage either.

Grandmother Turner was 73, about my age. My grandmother was 51. Daisy was 49. Alice was 30. My mother was 16 and her sister was 19.

They are posed in Grandmother Turner’s backyard on the East Side of Detroit at 4536 Harding.  The house is gone now.  They look like they just came from Plymouth Congregational Church, however the photo is dated July 4, 1939 on the back.  July 4 was on a Tuesday that year. My grandfather, Mershell C. Graham took the picture.

Front of Grandmother Turner’s house on Harding Street in Detroit.
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Grandmother Before the Party – 1971

Cleages, Detroit, Reeds, sepia saturday, ,
Before the party.

It was June of 1971 and my grandmother Pearl Reed Cleage was waiting for the party to begin. Uncle Hugh is in the kitchen getting things ready.  Grandmother was 87 and didn’t break her hip for some years yet. I remember so many dinners around that table. There were always cakes with caramel icing for birthdays. This time it looks like there are two cakes – one chocolate and one with caramel icing. Both have candles.

Candy corns in the little silver dish. There were often candy corns in the covered candy dish that always on the front room table coffee table. Candy corns or red and white striped peppermints or sometimes chocolate kisses.

My parents at the party, a corner of Henry. Blair and Anna Pearl are at the kids table in the front room.
A better view of the front room. You can see the candy dish on the table behind Maria’s chair.

I can think of several June birthdays. My father turned 60 that year. My cousin Anna Pearl turned eleven and her sister Maria turned nine. It must have been an all June collective party. I wish I had been there. My oldest daughter Jilo turned one that June.

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Barbara With a Parasol – 1953

Detroit, memories, sepia saturday
Barbara Lynn Elkins with parasol

My cousin Barbara was six years old when this photograph was taken.  She is holding a little parasol and standing at the edge of their front yard.

In age, Barbara was right between my sister Pearl and me. Every year my father took the three of us to the Michigan State Fair.   We went to the Fair right before the end of summer vacation in early September.

I remember buying little parasols like the one Barbara is holding. They were pin. blue, or yellow with flowers on them. We also liked to buy pop beads that snapped together into bracelets and necklaces. I don’t remember using them after the fair. They were part of the experience, like the cotton candy.

Pearl, Barbara and me in Nanny and Poppy’s backyard.

Living in Detroit, we didn’t see livestock everyday, but we saw it at the fair. I remember King Romancer the 23rd (or something along those lines), the bull who had sired many, many prize winning cows. And the time we rounded a corner to see a huge boar heading down the aisle towards us. Pearl and Barbara jumped behind me. There was someone with the boar and my father was right behind us, so all was well. We watched a 4-H cattle show where a girl kicked her losing heifer.  As we walked through the various barns full of animals, I was envious of the young people who had cots in stalls near their animals.

The only ride we ever went on was the “Tilt-A-Whirl”. It was one step up from the Merry Go Round, and it gave me an upset stomach every year. We must have left for home soon after enjoying this exciting ride.  I’m not sure when we stopped taking our annual trip, but it was well before our teen years.

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