Category Archives: sepia saturday

Ground Round and Grocery Shopping – 1962

Biography, Photographs, sepia saturday
grocery shopping
My mother and me coming out of the store.

This store was located some blocks from our house on Oregon on Tireman Ave.  Sometimes my mother called and ordered the food and the delivery guy brought it to the house. This day we went there in person and there is my mother in the glasses and me in a scarf with the grocery bag  coming behind her. Henry must have been there to take the photograph.  There is that strange grassy stuff at the top of the picture. It seems to be on a bunch of photos, maybe they were all taken on the same roll.

My most memorial story concerning this store is the time my mother, my sister and I were on the way to the store.  My sister and I were going in while my mother waited in the car and she was telling us what to get. One item was ground round and she was explaining the difference between hamburger (don’t get it!) and ground round (do get it!) when I heard my voice saying, “ok, ok. We’ll get ground round.”  There was silence for a moment and then she said get out, get the groceries and walk home.  That was about 5 blocks, with heavy paper bags of groceries.  We made it. Probably she had little to say to us when we finally did get home with the ground round and the rest of the groceries.

I was going to put a photo of the store as it is now but that area on goggle maps was vacant lots covered in cracked asphalt or brush. I can’t even tell where it was.  You can read more about the house we lived in during this time and my life there in O is for Oregon.

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To see other Sepia Saturday Offerings, CLICK!

In Nanny’s and Poppy’s yard – Spring of 1955

Detroit, Grahams, Photographs, sepia saturday, ,
1955_kris_barbara_graham_yard

Here I am under the apple tree with my cousin Barbara where we built and rebuilt a castle for our fairies. Each family had one. Ours was Pinkie my cousins was Lucy.  In between the castles we made various dirt pies and cakes. That little black utensil next to me was a sifter.  It had holes punched in the bottom and we sifted the dirt with it.

We used to walk up the plank against the back fence and look out into the alley. Nothing really exciting out there, most of the time although I remember the police chasing a man through there once. I am pretty sure we were not standing on the plank watching.  If we did, it was only for as long as it took an adult to call us inside While the chase went on.

It must be spring because we can see that there is no garden bu the Pussy Willow bush in the background seems to have buds.  We are wearing our light jackets (or “jumpers” as Poppy called them.) and overalls.  My saddle shoes are horribly dirty. My socks had probably slid down inside of them.  Barbara is wearing buckled shoes but her socks look quite saggy.  In the spring of 1955 I would have been 8 and Barbara would have been 7. She is missing a tooth, but not those you loose when you are 6.

In the fall my grandmother made the best applesauce with the apples from that tree. They were not the kind you eat uncooked.  In spite of the sticky stuff my grandfather painted around the tree trunk, there were worms in the apples and they were very small and sour. They made the best applesauce ever though, with lots of cinnamon.

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Click for more Sepia Saturday

Me And My Pal

Grahams, sepia saturday

"Me and my pal." From the Graham family photo album.
“Me and my pal.” From the Graham family photo album.

I’m not sure who either of these are but I wish I did. They are friends of my grandparents, Mershell and Fannie Graham, that I know.

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Seven Missing Posts For Sepia Saturday – Part 2

sepia saturday,

This is the second batch of photographs fulfilling missed prompts for Sepia Saturday 47 – 200. With this I have answered every prompt since I began with #47.

70 tab

61d5839de
The Camel Cigarette campaign started in 1913 with a mystery ad “The Camels are coming!” without saying what the camels were. Finally they were unveiled as cigarettes. Read about the history of cigarette addiction here – The Nicotine Fix.

louis on patio
My uncle Louis Cleage was born in 1913, the same year as Camel cigarettes. He chain smoked for most of his life, often lighting one cigarette from the one he held. I remember him talking and laughing, holding a cigarette with a long ash about to fall or falling. Here he is smoking at his cottage in Idlewild. He died at 80 of emphysema.

96 tabjilo_campfire_idlewildJilo roasting a marshmellow during one of the rare Cleage Reunions in the Deer Park next to Louis’ cottage in Idlewild, Michigan.

97tabbouleMy father and his siblings with other children at The Meadows. About 1930.  In the first row, L > R Henry, Barbara, Gladys and Anna Cleage. In the second row also L >R, Albert Jr, Louis and Hugh Cleage. Unfortunately, I do not know the other children’s names.

124
James catches train. There were several model trains in the family, but unfortunately I have no photos of them. Here son James catching a train from Oceanside, CA back to New Orleans after a visit with his sister and her family.

128 Fannie Graham 1934My grandmother Fannie Mae Turner Graham all dressed up for church by her back steps. I wonder what that box in the kitchen window was.  I found that there were “window refrigerators” in use during the depression.  You can see one here “LawCo vintage Window Refrigerator“.  Or even better, here “Window Icebox, A Money Saver.” Herb Mandel describes using one as a boy.

150shucksUnknown woman in Henry Cleage’s box of photographs.

170

hugh Uncle Hugh Cleage standing in a doorway.